


Second Chances (To Live Again)

by Winrael



Series: Kingdom of Virtue [2]
Category: Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Kidnapping, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reincarnation, Tai's parents explained, Temporary Amnesia, rebuilding relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:18:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 33,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2685740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winrael/pseuds/Winrael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back in the human world Tai is searching for his missing companions while still trying to make time for training TK and Kari his plans are derailed when a new enemy appears but not everything is as it appears and reunions can be turbulent</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Digidestined

**Author's Note:**

> so this is season two before you ask I have no plans of doing any other season in any case it wouldn't be connected to this series

Tai was in class when his digivice reacted warning him that Agumon was in danger. He quickly asked for a hall pass and made a portal to the digital world. Though years had passed he still hadn’t found all the others. The only one so far was Daisuke who was now called Davis. The boy was in Kari’s year group and interested in soccer.  
The others had regained their memories for the most part though other than Matt none of them fully remembered the attack. He and Matt were out as a couple. They weren’t blatant about it because it just wasn’t how they were, but they weren’t hiding it. Though some people scorned them they had a lot of support. Tai still played soccer and Matt was now in a band. Joe was studying for entrance exams for college. He wanted to be known as a doctor in both worlds. Sora had switched from soccer to tennis and Tai could see the merits, but he still preferred soccer  
Izzy was head of the computer club at school which meant they had access to the lab even after the club left so they could visit the digital world from there. Mimi had taken a chance to study abroad in America. Tai worked hard with her so she could create her own portals. With that she was only a short trip to the digital world away.  
Kari had fully embraced calling Tai her dad though never in public. Matt was once again Papa and he flushed lightly in happiness when she first called him that. They didn’t see TK often because he lived in a different district, but according to Matt it seemed he was moving here. It would be nice to have almost everyone together again. Tai was shaken from his thoughts when he spotted Agumon.  
Tai quickly rushed to his side feeling a dark aura around them that was keeping Agumon from digivolving. Before Tai could think of something to do Gatomon was there. Tai was shocked to notice her tail ring was missing. It may look loose, but in reality it was extremely difficult to get it to come off.  
Gatomon led them to a nearby cave and when inside Tai pulled out a mini computer and sent out a message asking for help. It didn’t take long for Izzy to respond and he mentioned Kari and TK were with him. Using the connection Tai sent a portal to where Izzy was.   
While he waiting, Gatomon brought his attention to something in the back of the cave. It looked like a digi-egg, but it had a spike in it and he’d never seen an egg with that kind of pattern. He sensed an energy like his own crest of courage, but slightly different and no connection to him. As he touched the egg a light shown from it like he’d activated some kind of switch. Three lights rose from it and Tai knew they were digivices. They were different from his and he felt excitement.   
This meant new digi-destined had been chosen and most likely it would be the others. Then his heart dropped at the fact that there were only 3 which meant one person would still be unaccounted for. Still it was more progress than he had made in the last 4 years put together. When Tai saw another signal on his digivice appear he headed out to meet Izzy, Kari and TK bringing Agumon, Gatomon and Patamon with him. He couldn’t find Tentomon  
As soon as they were in sight Patamon and Gatomon rushed to TK and Kari, Tai stalled for a bit when he noticed Davis was with them. He brought them back to the cave while Gatomon explained what happened. When Davis pulled out the new digivice it confirmed for Tai that the two others would be his people. He wondered who they would be out of Miyako, Iori and Ken. It could be any combination of two.  
“Davis this may sound odd, but I’d like you to try lifting that egg up.”  
Davis starred at him confused, but picked the egg up. As he did light shown from the spot where the egg had been. In the light appeared a Veemon. Tai was shocked he hadn’t seen a Veemon in years. They were digimon that were said to bring luck to their friends. They were also quite fun-loving and Tai felt it was a good match. While it seemed that Veemon hadn’t been created for Davis they were bonded similar to the way Tai and Agumon were bonded.   
His musings were interrupted by a Monochromon. Tai felt his anger at this so called ‘Digimon Emperor’ increase. He was enslaving peaceful digimon who for the most part just wanted to be left alone. Plus the control reminded him too much of what happened. As they ran Veemon told Davis he had to open the digi-egg with his courage. When he saw Kari hurt and unable to move out of the way from Monochromon’s attack he found his courage and words slipped out of his mouth,  
“Digi-armor energize!”  
As Veemon digivolved Tai could sense the power of Agumon’s evolutions bonding with him as he became Flame-dramon. The only thing Tai could think of was the researcher’s trying to find a way around the inability to digivolve.  
It didn’t take long for the control ring to break and Tai smiled with a little pride in his old apprentice. Soon they were headed back to earth and to Tai’s surprise they landed on Izzy and two other people.  
‘Iori and Miyako good I was worried a bit when only three went through that Iori didn’t make it. Poor Daisuke though. Ken was his balance he was always so reckless before they got together.’  
Tai shook his thoughts off and they all decided to go home. He found that Iori was now Cody and Miyake was now Yolei. She had been disappointed not to go to the digital world, but Tai promised she could go next time.  
As he headed home his thoughts turned to Ken and he wondered what happened. He hoped it was nothing bad. Unable to shake the bad feeling he called Matt and the others for a meeting. Matt got there a bit late because his band had been practicing and Mimi couldn’t make it.  
They began to discuss what happened and Tai shared his theories on the new kind of evolution based on what he saw and what Agumon told him. The others were worried about their digimon and what would happen if the digimon emperor went after them and they couldn’t digivolve.  
They made plans to head to the digital world the next day. Joe had an oral exam and Matt had band practice, but Tai assured them he would take care of everything. After everyone else left he turned to Matt.  
“How has your training been going?”  
“Not bad I can summon my daggers now even here, but I need to go to the digital world to see if I can digivolve.”  
“With the barriers up you might not be able to anyways. We need to find out what the source is and destroy it.”  
“Do you know how the others are progressing?”  
“Well much like you they refused my help.”  
“Tai you’re a slave driver as a trainer only Piximon is worse.”  
“True, but anyway I won’t know unless I ask. Hikari is progressing nicely she can’t summon a weapon yet, but she can make rookie level attacks.”  
“That’s good.”  
The next day they met up in the computer lab. Even Davis, Cody and Yolei came. They showed the others the new digivices. They were about to go through when Mr. Fujiyama showed up. He was surprised the see some of them since they graduated.   
“What are you doing here?”  
“I’m the new head of the computer club.”  
They were all stunned because he even admitted he didn’t know a single thing about computers. Tai decided to take one for the team and started pushing Mr. Fujiyama away with a pretense of wanting to talk about one of the projects he was working on.  
In the digital world Sora and Izzy were excited to be reunited with their digimon. Unfortunately the reunion was cut short by Sneemon attacking. Davis prepared to armor digivolve, but was interrupted by Drimogemon and Mojyamon. Yolei and Cody panicked seeing Davis fall into a hole and the others had to force them up to get away, after a while of walking their digivices went off.  
They followed them to a nearby temple where two more digi-eggs were. They were like the one Tai had found before though these one had the crests for love and knowledge on them. Yolei and Cody were able to lift them and this time underneath was a Hawkmon and Armadillomon. With the power of the eggs they were able to armor digivolve into Halsemon and Digmon.  
They flew quickly to find Davis and arrived just in time to prevent Veemon from being hit with a control ring. The managed to release Sneemon, Drimogemon and Mojyamon from his control, but he left before they could confront him personally. When it was time to head back their digimon wanted to come with. Izzy thought about it and said,  
“It should be fine we’ve brought our digimon with us before. Although you should revert back to the in-training stage so you can hide easier.”  
They all nodded and headed back to where Tai was finishing up his talk with Mr. Fujiyama. Somehow the talk about his project almost dissolved into a talk about romance but Tai managed to throw him off with the confession that he was gay. Surprisingly he was very accepting and told Tai that even though the chance of pregnancy wasn’t there it was still important to be safe. Tai figured it was better for both of them not to mention that he already had a daughter.  
When he got back to the computer room he noticed they were back and so were the digimon. He thought about going to get the other digimon, but figured it could wait as they had mentioned the digimon emperor never comes out at night. Still he would sleep better knowing Agumon was safe.   
“Guys there’s something I figured out.”  
“What is it Tai?” Izzy  
“My ability to open portals is embedded into the new digivices so they won’t need me to open the gate for them.”  
“That’s good it means we won’t have to meet them at the school and risk getting caught by Mr. Fujiyama again.” Izzy  
“Which is nice I was able to distract him last time with coming out, but that only works once.” Tai  
“Coming out?” Davis  
“I’m gay Davis Matt and I are in a relationship.”  
“What?!”  
“Is it really that shocking?” Kari  
“But soccer and you’re always so…”  
“Davis my sexuality has nothing to do with those things anyway we should be getting home. I’ll see you all tomorrow in the digital world.”  
The next day as soon as he could Tai visited Primary village. He and Elecmon put up some additional wards based off the energy in the dark rings.  
“Elecmon remember this will only keep the village itself safe so you’ll need to be careful when getting food and stuff. I can’t stretch it to the river it would leave a hole in the defenses.”  
“No it’s better to keep my babies completely safe I can handle the risk. I’ll be careful.”  
“Good luck. I need to go find the others they should be coming soon.”  
“Thank you for the additional protection.”  
“It’s no problem. I’ll see you late ok?”  
“Yes.”  
Unfortunately not too long after Tai left Elecmon found himself being chased by the digimon emperor. He ran as fast as he could to try to give him the slip so he could make his way back to the village. It might be under protection, but he still didn’t want to lead him there.  
Meanwhile Tai was meeting up with the others and arrived in time to hear their digivices go off. Before they could follow it they got confronted by the digimon emperor who said they couldn’t be digi-destined because they were too ordinary.  
Then it hit Tai the only thing that could mean. That meant he had a digi-vice which meant he could only be one person, Ken. Tai was reeling from the shock. Ken was such a kind and gentle soul. What could have happened to him that he would do this? He was claiming that everything in the digital world belonged to him.  
When they refused to leave he had Tyrannomon attack them. Hawkmon, Armadillomon, and Veemon all digivolved and the Emperor seeing a weakness directed his attacks at Gatomon and Patamon. Tai was glad he hadn’t had a chance to meet up with Agumon. He didn’t want him to get hurt. They were outnumbered and Digmon, Halsemon and Flame-dramon were holding them off so they could find the new digi-eggs.  
Soon they found a cave that was too small for the Tyrannomon to get into and inside were the digi-eggs of hope and light. They were surprised because they already had their digimon, but Tai encouraged them to lift it.  
“While we had others sharing our crests you two were the only ones for light and hope.”  
Nodding they approached the eggs. Before they could lift them their digivices glowed and changed in reaction. Sure enough they were able to pick up the eggs however instead of a new digimon appearing their own digimon digivolved. Patamon digivolved into Pegasusmon and Gatomon digivolved into Nefertimon. They were able to head back swiftly with Cody riding with TK and Tai rode with Kari.   
It didn’t take long to destroy the dark rings, but the digimon emperor got away again. Before they left Tai picked up Agumon. He agreed to head back with him as long as they returned to the digital world every day so he could help in the fight. Tai smiled Agumon was certainly his digimon even if he wouldn’t be much help he wanted to do what he could.  
Cody brought up that with the fact that the digimon Emperor was human they could try to defeat him here where he wasn’t as strong. Davis poked fun at the idea saying it wouldn’t work because there were too many possibilities and they couldn’t just knock on doors asking for the digimon emperor. Tai couldn’t stand to see the insecure look that was once more on the face of his once most trusted adviser so he stood up.  
“Cody has a good plan it’s just incomplete and anyway we already know several things about the digimon emperor.”  
“Like what?”  
“For one he’s not an adult. He’s restricted coming to the digital world because he’s in bed an adult wouldn’t have such restrictions. Another is he’s extremely intelligent. He mentioned constantly shifting strategies. Also he’s probably known for his intelligence here as well. He likes to brag about it.”  
Cody shot him a grateful look and he smiled back.  
“We can narrow it down and with luck he’ll reveal enough about himself that we’ll be able to find him.”  
The others nodded in agreement and they headed home preparing themselves for what the next day would bring.


	2. Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I didn't get this up sooner I've been busy with one of my college projects

Tai headed back with them the next day to the base they had discovered and they began to free all the digimon that were there. Tai was on edge because it seemed too easy. He hurried them along as they only had the rest of the lunch break before people would notice they were missing. As they were leaving Gatomon spotted a tower she didn’t recognize and she wondered what it was.  
Izzy was upset they brought the Gatsomon back with them, but Tai hadn’t wanted to leave them there. Cody said he would pretend they were some of his sculptures, but it wouldn’t work forever. Tai knew he needed to find somewhere safe for the digimon who couldn’t fight well to go. TK decided to ask if they could join Matt on stage though he seemed against it.   
As they were talking a girl he didn’t recognize came up and asked for his autograph. After he signed her shirt she asked TK if he would sign it too. Matt then heard his digivice beeping and knew there was trouble in the digital world. He worried about Gabumon. He knew Gabumon wouldn’t leave the digital world unless he was the one to ask.  
Soon after TK got a message from Yolei saying there was an emergency. Tai wasn’t there when he arrived, but they didn’t have time to wait for him. Matt was relieved to see Gabumon as soon as he went through, but upset when he noticed how hurt and exhausted he was. Gabumon told his that he had been captured, but managed to escape. Gabumon quickly told him about the towers being the creation of the digimon emperor.  
Davis just wanted to rush in there, but Matt pointed out that it could be and ambush and TK mentioned he could be using free digimon as hostages. Matt was frustrated with Davis. Tai was hotheaded, but he always thought of others’ safety first and he always listened when others pointed out other possibilities. Davis was far more reckless, but then Matt figured he could allow for the fact that Davis was much younger especially without his memories.  
Matt decided to talk to Tai about it as soon as he could. In the meantime their digimon put on fake rings so they could sneak into the village to get a closer look at the control spire. When they reached the jail they took off the fake rings and quickly subdued the guards.  
They headed towards the spire, but there were more guards on the path. Davis wanted to stop hiding and fight, but Matt stopped him sharing a piece of advice he hoped the boy would take to heart,  
“Fighting isn’t always the answer it should be a last resort.”  
Davis seemed frustrated and Matt hoped he wouldn’t blow his top. As they headed towards the spire he heard TK mention that they had met his sister and Davis started badmouthing her. Matt felt irritated. Sure he was young, but he could use a good dose of respect. It was only because he had other things to worry about that Matt didn’t punch him. Kari also snapped at him for talking that way about his sister. She counted a lot of the other digi-destined as her siblings and it made her mad when people badmouthed their siblings.  
They pretty much cooled off by the time they reached the spire, but before they could do anything they were ambushed by Vegiemon being led by Red-Vegiemon. As Veemon was the only one not tied down he tried fighting Red-Vegiemon, but wasn’t doing well. Then one of the blows glanced off him and cracked the control spire.  
Then when Veemon was slammed against it the control spire cracked even more, Veemon managed to duck out of the way of the final punch. Then the control spire began to spark. Then Matt’s digivice went off and Gabumon was able to digivolve.  
The Vegiemon scattered in panic and Davis took the opportunity to digivolve Veemon into Flame-dramon. After he defeated Red-Vegiemon, Tai, Izzy and Yolei showed up. It didn’t take long to come to the conclusion that it was the spire that was preventing them from digivolving. Armadillomon digivolved into Digmon to destroy what remained of the tower.  
This battle gave them hope that if they managed to destroy the towers they could free the controlled digimon without having to fight them all. When they returned home, now with the addition of Tsunomon, Izzy showed them a map of the digital world made up of squares and he said the black ones showed areas where there was a control spire. Unfortunately there were a lot of them and they didn’t know how to prevent the digimon emperor from making new ones. All they had to do was keep destroying them. A boon they found was that as long as they digivolved in an area free from control spires they would remain digivolved in an area with them.

The next day Joe was at school when his digivice chimed alerting him that Gomamon was in danger. He knew his excuse was flimsy, but he was too worried to think of a better one. He rushed to the computer lab they usually made portals in. He knew the younger digi-destined have been working on the control spires and he hoped they hadn’t left yet.  
Luckily they were still there when he arrived. He tried to be outwardly calm even though inside he was in turmoil. He didn’t want to worry them. He was glad to meet the others. He hadn’t had a chance before now. As they prepared to head out the last one arrived out of breath, but looking determined.  
They all went through and came out in a rather cold area. Joe passed out hot-packs and Kari joked about his reliability. Then Yolei dropped hers and when she picked it up she spotted Gomamon under the snow. Joe frantically dug to get his partner out. Gomamon was badly hurt, but pleased to see Joe. In order to get to the control spire the made a sled out of some of the trees unfortunately when they got closer they noticed it was being guarded by Frigimon. They sped past them prioritizing the destruction of the control spire, but then the Frigimon set off an avalanche. They managed to get away, but Cody fell into the water. Gomamon dove in to get him and they set up a fire in a cave. Joe made some tea and gave some to Cody first to warm him up.  
The others left to fight. Cody wanted to go to, but when they pointed out he needed rest and to conserve his energy if there was a fight he agreed to stay behind with Joe. Cody was still feeling bad so Joe gave him some advice to cheer him up. He mentioned everyone was where they were for a reason. Then they got attacked by the digimon emperor who had a Shellmon with him. Even though he was injured Gomamon still went to distract the Shellmon so the others had time to destroy the spire.  
Armadillomon digivolved into Digmon and was able to defeat Shellmon, but then Ebi-dramon showed up and pulled Digmon into the water. Fortunately at that moment the others destroyed the control spire so Gomamon was able to digivolve into Ikkakumon and save him.   
As they headed back Gomamon decided to stay in his rookie form as the size difference wasn’t much and he looked more like a stuffed animal as Gomamon anyway. They made sure the Frigimon knew to be on the lookout for the digimon emperor putting up a new control spire.  
That evening Tai was woken by his mother saying Izzy was on the phone. He answered a bit groggy, but woke up rapidly as he head Izzy begin to speak with a slight hitch in his voice that told Tai he was holding back tears.  
“Tai I remember the fight everything that happened. How worried I felt, knowing you were all fighting, the frustration of trying to find the weak points, the panic when I couldn’t find Mimi. It was horrible Tai.”  
“I know, but it is ok now. What do you need?”  
“I need Mimi, I need to see her and feel that she ok and I know it’s irrational, but-“  
“But nothing it was a horrible experience. I’ll be right over I just need to get dressed.”  
“Thank you. Tai, how did you deal with this memory for so long? You wouldn’t have even had the comfort of knowing we were alive.”  
“Not well honestly. I threw myself into training at first and I had Hikari to take care of. She was the only thing that held me together, the only light in my otherwise dark existence.”  
“Tai-“  
“I’m gonna hang up now, but I’ll be right over ok?”  
“Ok.”  
It didn’t take long to get Izzy over to Mimi and she was delighted to see him though a bit surprised. She understood once they explained and said she’d make sure Izzy got back in time for school so Tai could leave.  
As soon as he got back he called Matt after what just happened and all the emotions it brought up he also needed to be with someone. He headed over to Matt’s house as quickly as he could. It wasn’t until he got there and Matt brushed his cheek that he realized he’d started crying. It was like a dam broke and all of the fear, pain, and sorrow he had felt over the years they were separated and the time they didn’t remember came spilling out.  
Matt didn’t say anything, just held him until he was emotionally spent and gently kissed him. For a while they just sat there with Tai’s head in Matt’s lap while Matt gently brushed his fingers through Tai’s hair.  
“Tai if you like you can stay here tonight. My dad won’t be home, but even if he was he wouldn’t mind.”  
“Thank you.”  
“Come on I’ll lend you some of my pajamas and a uniform for tomorrow.”  
Tai followed Matt to his room and they changed into their pajamas before climbing in bed together. Tai began to relax it felt good being able to sleep with his husband again. Such a simple thing to think about, but he had missed it so much. He closed his eyes and dreamed about happier days playing as children, their wedding day, and those precious months they had with Hikari.  
The next day when he woke up he was delighted to get a message from Mimi saying she’d be returning to Japan for a short visit. She would be arriving on Sunday and he was looking forward to the chance for everyone to get together. Then he found out the others were planning to have a picnic in the digital world and thought about coming with, but then decided it might be better to have a separate picnic.  
When he asked Mimi how she felt about it she said she wanted to meet the others as she hadn’t had a chance yet so she’d eat with them and meet the others later. Tai agreed and made sure everyone else knew the plan. Mimi was excited when she arrived back in the digital world. She hoped to meet up with Palmon while she was there.  
As they were eating one of the sushi rolls began to roll away and Hawkmon and Yolei went after it. Mimi decided they shouldn’t be going on their own and followed after. Unfortunately she got caught in a trap and ended up falling. When she woke up Yolei was there and pointed out a nearby control spire. Soon they were confronted by Otamamon and Gekomon.   
Luckily Palmon was there and managed to get them away. It was a happy reunion. She wished they had more time to catch up, but it was too dangerous. As they were trying to get in contact with the others they were found by a pair of Roachmon. Hawkmon digivolved into Halsemon, but while he was faster than the Roachmon he couldn’t defeat them alone. Mimi noticed that they couldn’t turn very well and told Yolei that they could use that to destroy the control spire.  
As predicted the pair crashed into it disabling it enough for Palmon to digivolve. Soon they were able to get the control rings off and were joined by the others including the Otamamon and the Gekomon. For the first time in a long time all the digi-destined were together except for one. Tai glanced at Davis grateful for the first time that he didn’t remember being Daisuke because it would tear him apart not having Ken.  
Ken had a calming effect on him. It kept him grounded and less prone to his impulsive attack first think later pattern of behavior. It was an understatement to say that Daisuke had been rash. He’d gotten better over the years, but Tai still believed he was better as being something like a guard than a leader. He was ok for leading the digi-destined against the digimon emperor, but politics were never his strength.  
Tai shook off his thoughts. There was nothing he could do about it now. What was important was to take in the moment. He found himself leaning against Matt watching the others. He noted with some interest that Yolei was fawning over Mimi. They had always gotten along before as they were both pacifists by nature. He also noted that Davis seemed jealous of how close Kari and TK were. He hoped it would cause strain they needed to work together. As much as Tai wanted to keep his daughter safe and away from the fight he knew he couldn’t. The rest of the picnic went off without a hitch and soon it was time to return home.  
They decided it was best that they set a quota for how many control spires they destroyed in one day. It had to be a realistic number, but decent enough that even if the digimon emperor decided to build more he was at a disadvantage. When they got down to the last one they decided to leave it to the younger generation. Unfortunately the place was guarded by Gardromon and their armor was hard to pierce when they fell back to head to earth the portal got destroyed before Kari could make it through.   
Tai was at home watching his mom cook when Cody called and told him what happened to Kari. Tai was trying to let them have their independence, but this was a step to far. It was instances like this that Tai was glad his parents knew about everything.  
“Mom I need to head to the digital world for an emergency Kari needs me. We’ll hopefully be back before bed I’d appreciate it if you kept some food warm.”  
“Ok Tai, be careful.”  
“We will.”  
Tai didn’t want to worry his parents so he did his best to keep it together until he was out of the house then he broke into a mad sprint to meet Matt.  
“Are you going to go?”  
“Of course I’m going to go. I’ve been trying to let them do this on their own, but our baby is in danger and having me stay is too much to ask of me.”  
“Then go. You don’t need to worry about the others I’ll make the excuses about them being home late.”  
“You sure Matt she’s your daughter too I know you’re just as worried.”  
“I trust you. You’ll bring her home safe.”  
“Thank you Koi. I love you.”  
“I love you too. Now get going.”  
Tai nodded and started running. Matt went around and started making the usual excuses for being late. He wasn’t quite sure how, but Davis’s sister knew he was lying and blackmailed him to get a date. Before he could protest she shut the door in his face. He left feeling frazzled and decided to tell Tai about what happened as soon as he got back.  
In the digital world Davis and TK found Kari, but then Andromon showed up and their digimon reverted back to their resting states. Luckily Andromon spotted Davis’s goggles and recognized them as being the same ones usually worn by Tai. This stalled him enough for Yolei and Cody to arrive to help. Tai stood with Kari and told Andromon to stop. Deep in his programming Andromon recognized Tai as both digi-destined and king. When he picked up Kari he remembered her as well. Her digivice fell on Andromon and he remembered the picture they all took together and this broke the control the ring had one him.  
With his help they were able to destroy the control spire. Andromon said he needed to stay and reboot the Gardromon, but they would all be fine. When they arrived Izzy was there and he was upset that he hadn’t been called. Tai tried to placate him by saying there wasn’t time, but Izzy just kept lecturing until Tai said,  
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”  
“There now that’s respect. I forgive you. Now I discovered the new digivices have three setting Digital, Detect, and discover. So I figured to separate them from ours we could call them D3s.”  
“That sounds good.”  
As soon as they were out of hearing range of the others Tai said,  
“I’m sorry Izzy when I heard Kari was in danger all other thoughts flew from my head.”  
“I know, she’s your daughter and Matt is her other father. It’s natural you’d think of him first. I just wished you’d called me as well.”  
“I will. Thank you for helping Izzy.”  
At Matt’s he was making dinner when his father mentioned he got a call from a girl named Jun saying she made reservations.  
“Here I thought you were gay and dating Tai.”  
“I am dad. She kind of ambushed me and then shut the door in my face before I could protest. I’ll talk to Tai about it when he gets back.”  
As soon as they finished eating Matt got a call from Tai and finally relaxed. Kari was alright.


	3. Turmoil

Tai was watching one of Davis’s soccer games as it was a good way to see how much of his old skill remained. From how things were going it could have been worse, but it also could have been better. Then he learned they were going to play against the winners of the last league. According to Davis it was the team with Ken Ichijouji on it.  
At first Tai thought it was a coincidence, but then he saw the boy. There was no mistaking it. It was Ken. Tai was shocked though. Ken had never been this good at sports. He was talented for sure, but his main interests had always been horticulture and games. He always figured it was a mutual interest in games that got Ken and Daisuke together.  
Tai thought about bringing his suspicions to the others, but decided against it as he had no proof other than the similar physical appearance. In the end they decided to go watch the match. Tai wished he could bring Agumon who loved the sport as much as he did, but with the control spires being taken down most of the digimon decided it was safe enough to stay in the digital world.  
It was only Tai along with the current digi-destined as the others didn’t enjoy soccer as much. Before the game, Tai shouted for Davis not to forget to give Ken a kiss. It was mostly teasing to embarrass him, but he was also interested in seeing them together. This could give him the proof he needed to see if it was really their Ken.  
Tai was pleased watching the game though it was rough it was obvious that Davis had a lot of talent. He moved well with the rest of his team. In the first half he was the only player to score a goal. Then Ken arrived and the game completely flipped around. Ken quickly scored 9 goals. Just as he was about to get another score Davis managed to get the ball away, but scraped Ken’s leg in the process.  
Tai watched from some distance as they interacted after the game. It reminded him a bit of how Daisuke and Ken had been at first, but then there was something about Ken’s eyes that seemed wrong. Their Ken’s eyes had been so warm with kindness. This Ken’s eyes were quite cold; though he appeared friendly it was almost superficial.   
“Maybe I was wrong or maybe something bad happened to hm.”  
Tai soon went home with the others feeling no less sure than he was before the game. Yolei seemed besotted with Ken much to Tai’s amusement. Cody seemed irritated, but Tai couldn’t tell if it was because of his own attraction or if it was just because Yolei wouldn’t stop talking about him.  
The next day the current digi-destined went to the lab to see a new control spire had been built overnight in the middle of a place called the forbidden valley. When they arrived it didn’t take long before everybody, but Davis and Veemon were sucked into the ground. He ran towards the taunting voice of the digimon emperor and demanded their return.  
The Emperor then pointed to where they were all hanging in a row. Davis started running towards them when he saw Deltamon. The emperor demanded that Davis beg for mercy and ordered Veemon to restrain him. Davis gave the ok knowing he wasn’t strong enough on his own. Then he told Davis to choose which one of his friends should be spared and gave him an hourglasses worth of time to decide who.  
Davis couldn’t decide and in the end asked the digimon emperor to take him instead. He smirked and ordered the Deltamon to attack. Luckily before anything could happen to him Digmon dug a hole and Deltamon fell in. It turned out the people hanging were really Bakemon. Upon finding out the trick he had Veemon armor digivolve to join the others.  
While they were fighting Davis went and tackled the digimon emperor down the hill figuring if he was distracted the others could win. He knew he could get hurt, but it was this or risk losing and with them not able to defend the digital world who knew what could happen.  
With that the tide turned and they were able to destroy the control spire. Then Davis noticed there was blood on the digimon emperor’s pants in the same place Ken had gotten a cut when they played soccer. He felt angry and betrayed. Ken was the digimon emperor. He couldn’t understand why, but it felt like his heart had been ripped out. Then pain switched to greater anger and he would have lunged at the digimon emperor if he hadn’t taken that moment to escape.  
As soon as they got back to earth they told the others what they had learned. Tai seemed pensive and as soon as they were alone Matt said,  
“You knew didn’t you?”  
“I suspected. I hoped so much that I was wrong.”  
“I understand. Poor Davis though, he must in such turmoil and he doesn’t even know why.”  
“Matt what should we do?”  
“I don’t know Tai. I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”  
“Something really bad must have happened for Ken to be like that. You remember him; he was always so kind and gentle.”  
“I know. We’ll find out and if we can we’ll fix it.”  
“Thank you Matt.”  
“Anytime.”

The younger generation made plans to confront him, but when they got to his apartment building they found the police their and overheard Ken’s parent’s telling them he had run away. They knew he must have gone to the digital world. When they arrived at the computer lab they saw a lot more areas had a control spire. He’d be able to take over faster than ever now that he no longer had other responsibilities. They went as fast as they could to confront them. As soon as they left Izzy contacted the others and told them what happened.  
While Tai was waiting for news he felt like acid was burning along the bond he had with Agumon. He ran to his computer as fast as he could something was very wrong. He saw something that confirmed his worries. The area Agumon had been guarding was black again. Either Agumon was under the digimon emperor’s control or… He didn’t want to think about the alternative. Death in the digital world might usually lead to rebirth in primary village, but so much could happen. A digimon could be deleted permanently; they could even lose some or all of their memories. Some older digimon often purposefully chose to have some of their memories removed in the rebirth process. Digimon lived for a long time and for some it could be taxing after a long while.  
His thoughts kept cycling and becoming darker. He had to get to the digital world as soon as possible. No matter what had happened he needed to know. It was agony waiting for school to let out the next day. His bond with Agumon was still burning. The only comfort it gave him was that Agumon was still alive. As soon as he could be he was in the computer lab waiting for the others to arrive. When they arrived Davis admitted it was his fault they were late. Tai got angry about how dismissive Davis was being to the danger Agumon was in.  
Then he looked closer. While for the most part Davis appeared the same as always Tai could see a sense of weariness along his features. It was subtle but there. Davis was hurting badly. He was probably rationalizing it as something else. Finally they were heading out. Yolei didn’t want to go and Ta agreed she shouldn’t go if her heart wasn’t in it as it could be dangerous. She was pleased that she was able to stay.  
As soon as they got to the digital world they were met by Tentomon. He didn’t know where Agumon was, but he agreed to look around. Tai was restless he wished his bond could lead him to Agumon, but it wasn’t like that. Bonds of partnership were meant to create a balance in strength; it took familial bonds to get as much as a general direction.  
They began to ask around for the digimon emperor and destroying some control spires as they went. Soon they got a message from Yolei who heard from Tentomon that Agumon might be in Rail Town. It didn’t take long for them to arrive at the pace Tai was using. He knew he was pushing them a little, but he also knew they were capable and he was worried.  
As he was searching he felt the burning of his bond cease. Not long after Agumon was pulling into Rail town. He had escaped. Soon he was hugging Agumon, but the hug told him that Agumon was exhausted. He wanted to fight, but knew they weren’t in a proper state to do so. He got Davis to agree to rest before they did anything else. Tai was carrying Agumon as they walked because he was too tired to move much. It was why he hitched a ride on a train rather than walk.  
As they were leaving though, the digimon emperor arrived. Tai took the moment to try and see what had happened. He felt a dark pulse in Ken that seemed to focus on the back of his neck. Before he could do anything else a fight broke out. All the digimon armor digivolved and were winning. Then Agumon tried to fight only to be caught in a dark spiral. It was stronger than a ring and managed to contain Agumon’s power even when he digivolve into Metal-Greymon.  
Tai felt despair as he watched them leave, but soon Yolei and Hawkmon showed up with Matt. He took one look at Tai and asked to be filled in. As he heard about Agumon he placed a hand on Tai’s chest to allow their own bond to swell with the contact. It eclipsed the pain of his bond with Agumon if only for a short time.  
“Ok if we’re going to get him back we have to be willing to fight Agumon at full strength.” Matt gave Tai a significant look and he nodded.  
“Yes it’s what he would want.”  
It meant revealing more than he wanted to the others, but if he could get Agumon back it was worth it. Soon they were in a small train car sailing across the land. Tai leaned against Matt. He was full of energy, but emotionally he was exhausted. While they were traveling they got an update from Tentomon who Matt then asked to find Garurumon in case they needed the help.  
“Tai will you be alright to fight?”  
“I’ll be alright Matt, but I’m not sure if I can concentrate enough to be of much help.”  
Matt nodded realizing Tai meant he was in too much pain to digivolve. If it came down to it Matt thought he might be able to, but he wasn’t sure and hoped it didn’t come to that.  
“Wait, are you saying you want to fight Metal-Greymon.”  
“Yes with all of us together we stand a good chance and there are some things that just have to be done right Tai?”  
Tai nodded. Davis still seemed uncertain about fighting and he claimed it was because he didn’t want to hurt Agumon. TK pointed out that they didn’t need to hurt him they just had to get rid of the dark spiral. This got them into an argument. They began to fight and the others tried to pull them apart when Tai said,  
“Let them fight.”  
“But isn’t that bad for teamwork?” Cody  
“When Matt and I were younger we fought a lot too. If we hadn’t we wouldn’t know so much about each other and he probably wouldn’t have agreed to go out with me. Besides they should get it out of their systems now so they can be better focused when we need to fight.”  
As they were traveling Cody’s digivice reacted saying there was a digi-egg in the area. They stopped and soon found a wall with the crest of friendship carved into it. Nearby they found the digi-egg. Matt and Tai both knew it was meant for Davis, but made a show of trying to lift it anyway. When Davis was asked to try he seemed nervous and while he made a show both Matt and Tai noticed he wasn’t really trying. Matt glanced at Tai questioning, but Tai shook his head. This was a lesson Davis needed to figure out for himself in order for it to mean anything.  
Before they could do anything Flymon showed up and started attacking them. Hawkmon and Veemon armor digivolved to fight it, but it used a sound wave attack causing them to cover their ears and the Flymon kidnapped Patamon. Before they could chase after him the digimon emperor appeared with Metal-Greymon. Flymon held Patamon out to him and he pulled out a dark spiral.  
Tai froze. Patamon was a holy beast dark energy was pretty much poisonous to them. He was in pain from Metal-Greymon being controlled if it happened to Patamon he feared for TK. Luckily before he was able to Garurumon showed up and rescued Patamon. Matt quickly instructed Garurumon to fight with all of his power. Garurumon was reluctant as he didn’t want to hurt Metal-Greymon, but knew it was the better choice. He set Matt down so he could digivolve into Were-Garurumon.  
To help, Cody and Kari armor digivolved and the fight began. Everyone was helping except TK because Patamon was still hurt by Flymon’s earlier attack and Davis. He was still too worried about hurting Metal-Greymon  
“Davis it’s not about what you want to do! It’s about the things you have to do for friendship!”  
Matt decided he was going to have one more go at the spiral with Were-Garurumon before attempting to digivolve himself. It wouldn’t be ideal exposing them to The Digimon emperor, but if it was for Agumon it was worth it. Then Veemon was almost stepped on and Patamon dove in to get him out of the way. TK berated Davis for not moving even though his digimon was in danger. Thinking about what was happening Davis realized what friendship could help a person do and began to open his heart a little more to his bond with Veemon.   
This caused the digi-egg of friendship to react and float in front of him, Veemon then armor digivolved into Rai-Dramon. He shot an attack at the dark spiral, but it didn’t work. Then he tried again with Were-Garurumon and the spiral snapped. Agumon was free. The digimon emperor got away again, but Tai didn’t care. He was having a rather tearful reunion with Agumon. All too soon they had to head back to Earth. Izzy asked Tentomon to keep an eye on the digimon emperor. He agreed and then Izzy joined in the small celebration they were having over Agumon’s freedom.


	4. The Darkness, the Egg and the Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so in this chapter we find out what happened to Tai's digital mother

Tai was concerned. Kari seemed rather tense and he couldn’t figure out why. He hoped it wasn’t anything dangerous she was doing. As he headed to school he tried to calm down. If it got to be too bad she would tell him… right? He knew she had been having nightmares, but there was nothing he could do about that. He could only hope that she would tell him when she was ready until then he would protect her.  
Tai tried to focus on school, but he couldn’t worry kept nagging at him. Eventually he asked for a hall pass. If he was quick he should be able to check in on Kari. As he looked in at her classroom he tensed in fear. There was dark energy surrounding her and energy like that only came from one place.  
He hoped she could hold on the only good thing was that if it was what he thought it was it would have a hard time taking her. Still he told the nurse he would be heading home for the rest of the day. He had to keep an eye on Kari. He got back to her in time to see TK ask her if she was alright.  
She described what had happened that day confirming Tai’s worries. TK said they could fight it, and Kari said she wasn’t strong like her dad was. Tai walked over and she jolted up when he gently placed a hand on her cheek.  
“Don’t ever think that you’re not strong enough Kari. You’re a digimon of light the darkness hurts you the most, but that also means that you hurt the darkness the most as well. That’s why it’s hunting you. You’re stronger than it is and it fears you.”  
“Dad I wish it would just leave me alone.”  
Tai pulled her and TK into a hug. He was worried for Kari to call him dad in public meant she drastically needed comfort.  
“Me too baby girl, but just remember we all love you Kari. There’s no way we’re letting you go without a fight.”  
TK nodded in agreement and Kari smiled weakly before she seemed to realize something.  
“Dad shouldn’t you be at school?”  
“I told the nurse I was heading home for the day. I was worried about you and I see I was right to be. I’ll wait here for you if you want to finish the day. Then we’ll head home and I’ll see if I can find something to help.”  
Kari nodded and after school they were walking home. As they reached a crosswalk Kari seemed to get a glazed look in her eye. She crossed the street and then vanished she even left behind her backpack. Tai’s eyes widened as Gatomon leaped down next to him.  
“Gatomon get help as quickly as you can. I’ll try to reach Kari. I know the world she is in and hopefully my connection will lead me to her.”  
Gatomon nodded and then Tai focused his energy to make a portal to a place he hoped he’d never see again. ‘The dark Ocean’ the last time he had been there his digital parents had still been alive. It didn’t take long to get a portal up and he stepped through it. He came out next to a mockery of a lighthouse. Rather than light it spread darkness. He looked around and felt relief when he spotted Kari. She was further down the beach. As he made his way in her direction she began to walk in another direction.  
As he was getting closer he saw a tunnel. He felt the darkness coming from it and shivered. For a moment he wasn’t Powerful and Brave King Taichi. He was little prince Tai half hiding behind his mother as they came to this new world they discovered to see if they could form an alliance with its people. Before he could do anything he saw Kari running out of the cave with things following her.   
They were wearing the guise of Scubamon, but they weren’t he knew that energy better than he ever wished. Luckily Kari was heading straight toward him now.   
“Dad!”  
The shadows were looking at him, but they didn’t transform. They probably didn’t recognize him with his energy mostly suppressed. Soon after they were attacked by shadows in the appearance of Air-Dramon and Tai knew the shadows were trying to convince Kari that they had been captured by the digimon emperor then TK showed up with Gatomon. Pegasusmon destroyed the dark tower and Gatomon digivolved into Angewomon and was able to defeat the shadow Air-dramon.  
“Kari stop!”  
“Why?”  
“Kari they’re not Scubamon!”  
“What?!”  
Tai flared his energy a little. He knew this would show them who he was, but if it meant Kari was safe he’d do anything.  
“Well, well if it isn’t little prince Taichi. I was sure we’d never see you again. Tell us how is honored Queen Amalthea?”  
Tai’s energy flared again with his growing rage as he watched the shadows reveal their nature. Kari cred out in shock and Angewomon swooped closer to protect her. Tai formed a line of fire between the shadows and them. TK had ducked closer and as soon as he reached them Tai formed a portal to take them back to Earth.  
“Dad?”  
“Yes Hikari?”  
“What were those things? Where were we? Who is Queen Amalthea?”  
Tai paused.  
“I call them shadows. We were on a world called the dark ocean. Queen Amalthea is my mother.”  
“Your mother?”  
“Yes you have her eyes and she was aligned with the crest of light just like you are. Matt and I were quite surprised especially because Izzy had ruled out genetics as a reason for being connected to a crest. You have a much deeper connection to it than she did though. A long time ago we had just gained the ability to travel to worlds other than earth and everyone was excited. The dark ocean was one of the first worlds we came across and my mother and I had gone to see if we could form an alliance with the people there. By the time we found out about their nature it was too late.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“They infected my mother with a kind of shadow poison. Because one of her attributes is light it tore through her system quickly she didn’t survive.”  
“How old were you?” TK  
Tai paused. It had been a while since it happened.  
“I can’t quite remember. It was a long time ago, but I think I was around 10 years old.”  
“Dad?”  
“Yes?”  
“Thank you for rescuing me.”  
“Anytime baby girl, anytime.”  
With that Tai brought TK home before heading home with Kari. When he told Izzy about what happened he worried about the fact that they were able to pull Kari through without the help of a gate. Izzy agreed to begin researching to see if it was because they all worked together or if it had something to do with Kari.  
Meanwhile in the digital world they found out another digi-egg was nearby. However it was a pretty long walk from the portal and they were getting hungry. They thought about heading back when TK spotted a restaurant.  
As they were eating TK was on edge. There was something familiar about this restaurant and he didn’t like it. When the time came to pay the bill they realized they didn’t have the right form of currency. Luckily Mimi arrived with a friend who agreed to pay for them. There was also a Betamon who was Michael’s digimon. Mimi found out there were digi-destined in other parts of the world and wondered if it was that same as with them.  
She was surprised when a scan told her that they were completely human. When she told Tai about it he said that it was possible, but the bond wouldn’t be as strong as a human didn’t have the attributes to form the reciprocal bond. After all the researchers creating the connection did make it possible for humans. He reasoned the need for the extra digi-destined was because of how large the digital world was. It was as big as earth.  
As they were leaving Yolei was trying to deal with her disappointment. Everyone seemed to like Mimi. Her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Gorillamon who had a dark spiral on his arm. Betamon digivolved into Sea-dramon and was able to defeat Gorillamon with the help of Togemon.   
Mimi shared her belief that no digimon was born evil. When she shared this with Tai he got a distant look on his face and nodded. She felt he was remembering something from before they met. If she recalled correctly they met shortly after he and Matt had gotten married.   
They realized Digitamamon was missing so Kari and TK went off to find him. Unfortunately he arrived after they left and he was mad. Hawkmon digivolved into Halsemon to protect Mimi, but he wasn’t strong enough on his own. So Flame-dramon and Digmon went to help. Mimi then stopped them from attacking and tried to reason with Digitamamon.  
Yolei couldn’t understand why Mimi was being so kind. Then when she got hit Yolei stood up to talk and pointed out both Digitamamon’s faults as well as her own. She admitted she had some problems with snap judgments of people. When she finished a digi-egg began to float in front of her. It had the crest of sincerity on it. With it Hawkmon digivolved to Shurimon and with his keen eyesight spotted the dark spiral inside Digitamamon’s shell. Nefertimon and Pegasusmon arrived in time to help destroy it. Everything was cleared up and as the sun was setting it was time to head home.

Tai worried as he watched his laptop. New areas were rapidly being taken over. Even with each of their digimon watching a section of the digital world it wasn’t enough. The kids had taken down a control spire in a town where the Gekomon were, but sometimes it seemed like they weren’t making a difference. Kari was now resting, but Tai found he couldn’t sleep. All he could think about was the darkness he sensed in Ken. It had to be outside control. There was no other explanation, but how could he stop it? He doubted Ken would let him get close enough to remove it without force. Finally he couldn’t take it anymore and silently left the apartment.  
He soon found himself at the park. It was where they would often meet up to discuss things as most kids were gone by sunset. He just sat there for a while brooding when he felt someone sit next to him. He jolted a bit, but relaxed when he saw it was Matt.  
“It’ll be ok Tai. We’ll get him back.”  
“How can you say that?”  
“Because no other option is acceptable.”  
Tai found himself leaning against Matt with a small sigh. Matt was right worrying about it wouldn’t help anything. He needed to be ready. The kids might be taking the lead on this, but they would always be there for support. After sitting there for a bit longer Matt gave him a quick kiss and they both went home.  
The next day they were tracking down another digi-egg and the signal led them to an oil rig. No one noticed Cody’s nervousness at first although he seemed to be in a hurry to get the digi-egg. Then when they got inside, Mega-sea-dramon cut them off from land and knocked them into the water. He damaged the siding causing water to enter the area they were in. They managed to seal off the damaged sections, but it meant they were stuck.  
Now it seemed like Cody was having a panic attack. He was curled up by a wall. When Armadillomon asked if he was alright Cody said he’d been having dreams like this for a long time, but he always woke up before they ended.  
Then Patamon discovered an emergency ejection vehicle, but it only was meant for one person. Then Kari said that Cody should be the one to go. Cody was upset at being chosen just because he was afraid so to placate him Yolei said they should draw straws. Unfortunately Cody discovered it was rigged and Yolei decided enough was enough and had TK and Davis toss him in.  
Before too long he reached the surface. As quickly as he could he left to find Joe to get help. Since Joe’s phone was off he had to find his school.  
In the water the others were experiencing the problems of being stuck in a room with several other people. Armadillomon seemed to be the only one still calm.  
Cody was having problems reaching Joe because he was taking a test. The secretary said he could only get Joe if it was a family emergency. Cody wanted to get Joe, but he also didn’t want to lie. His grandfather told him it was better not to speak than to lie. In the end he decided it was an emergency and he had no other choice. As soon as Joe was brought out he told him the full truth of what happened and Joe called Izzy asking him to track down a friend of theirs.  
In the water after some digging they found the digi-egg, but the air was getting thin. On the upside they weren’t fighting anymore. They determined quickly the digi-egg was Cody’s and while they were still sad they felt better. Then Yolei spotted Ikkakumon. He began to fight mega-sea-dramon. The last time Ikkakumon faced him he’d been Zudomon, but he couldn’t digivolve again without Joe who was with Cody. They were inside of Whamon who had just burst into the side of the container.  
They were preparing to leave, but TK and Davis said they couldn’t leave until Cody picked up the digi-egg. Cody felt that it was because of the digi-egg that they were stuck down here in the first place and didn’t want to touch it. He didn’t feel he was worthy because he had lied to get Joe out of class. He began to cry.  
“Cody, there are different kinds of lies. There are lies that hurt people and lie that can help. I’m not condoning lying, but in your case you didn’t have another choice. If you told the truth he wouldn’t have believed you and if you just waited for me to be finished, we might not have made it in time. So your lie saved their lives and I’ll explain that to your grandfather.”  
Cody smiled through his tears, picked up the digi-egg and Armadillomon digivolved to Submarimon. Cody hopped into the case on Submarimon while the others escaped in Whamon. With the help of Ikkakumon Cody and Submarimon were able to destroy the dark spiral. Since it was safe Submarimon began to show Cody the beauty of the ocean to help with his fear.


	5. The Golden Radience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so this chap is part of the reason for the PTSD tag

The digi-destined were concerned when they learned the computer lab would now be used for kids in detention which meant they had to find another place to use to get to the digital world. It was being put off though because it was almost the anniversary of the day they beat Myotismon. It had been four years since then and it was amazing how much had happened.  
TK and Kari had both started training to use their abilities. When they asked Tai scanned for their attributes. TK’s were Data, Wind, and holy beast while Kari was Data water and holy beast. It surprised Tai a bit when he learned that about Kari he figured she got that from his mother. Queen Amalthea had been a holy beast as well.  
Either way it was nice to have the whole group together. Since they had the time Tai began telling them about their trip to the digital world. He decided with the others not to tell them about being digimon yet. They wanted to wait until they got Ken back. The others especially Davis would not take losing their friend well.  
When they split up for the day TK went to get something to eat with Matt. When their dad got home he was exhausted a lot of people had quite saying they kept seeing strange things on the monitor. Matt focused on what he was saying. If something strange was happening with electronics it could have connections to the digital world.  
Knowing he couldn’t do more without checking Matt decided to let it go for now. Half of the digi-destined were walking around the city remembering things that had happened during the fight with Myotismon. The rest were with Tai except for Joe who was in class. Tai was telling them that they didn’t need the school computers in particular they could also use their home computers. It was just more convenient to use the school as you didn’t need an extra excuse of where you went.   
Tai was glad he didn’t need to worry about being discovered anymore although he knew it worried his mom whenever they went to the digital world. He wished he could show her that it was just a beautiful as it could be dangerous. After that they met up with the others and when Tai heard what Matt had to tell him they decided to head to the studio to see Matt’s dad.  
When Gatomon heard something she darted into the building because the voice was very familiar. When she said ‘I’m here’ the word Gatomon was written across the computer screen. Then the ghost turned out to be the ghost of Wizardmon.  
‘That explains why he hasn’t been reborn in primary village. He must have gotten caught up in the computers here.’ Tai  
Wizardmon warned them that their enemy was not just the digimon emperor, but a much greater darkness.  
“The darkness, it cannot be defeated with strength alone. You must return the one wrapped in darkness to his true self.”  
“True self?”  
“Kindness will release the golden radiance. Kindness alone will not prevail Gatomon. The golden radiance is also necessary. “  
“I see but-“  
“You don’t have much time. You must hurry. Good-bye my friend.”  
With that he had to go. Tai was grateful that this meant he hadn’t been deleted however he wasn’t sure how they could help him. Also Tai knew what he was saying probably because he had the most information. Ken had held the crest of kindness. He was wrapped in darkness and they only had so much time to rescue him.  
With those thoughts they left the flowers they had brought for Wizardmon. Hopefully he would like them.  
Given the new information they stepped up their plans to find the digimon emperor and eventually Cody and Izzy came across a place surrounded by control spires and multiple controlled digimon who were fighting each other. There was an oddly shaped building that Izzy believed to be the digimon emperor’s base.  
Unfortunately they were spotted by Kuwagamon. Digmon held him back while they escaped, but then the digimon emperor came himself. Tentomon tried digivolving even though he knew it was futile. Luckily before he could attack they fell into a hole created by Digmon. They got far enough away that Tentomon could digivolve to Kabuterimon so they could escape.  
When they got back they explained what they found and Tentomon said he stick around to keep an eye on things. After some amount of debate they agreed to try and attack the digimon emperor’s base hoping that if they destroyed it the control spires would end up useless.  
Matt was despairing about not being able to help because they couldn’t digivolve and Tai smiled.  
“We can help in other ways like going on a camping trip.”  
He explained how they could use that to cover up what they were going to do. The older digi-destined would be covering for the younger. Matt agreed that it was a good plan. When Izzy’s mom came in they told her what they were planning and she asked who would be going with them and Matt said his dad would. Izzy was glad his mom was holding up the pretense of being normal kids with Cody, Davis and Yolei he agreed with Tai that they had to get Ken back before they said anything.  
When the time for the trip came Matt, Tai and Izzy were all packed and ready to go. Unfortunately as they were about to pull out Jun was there. Matt agreed to head out to try and get rid of her. Tai watched with no small amusement as Matt struggled with Jun. Tai thought about helping him, but he was a terrible liar. For all that he could act well it only really worked if he planned something in advance.  
Then Matt said something Tai couldn’t hear and Jun looked shocked and frozen. Matt quickly walked back to the car and told his dad to step on it.  
“What did you say?”  
“I told her I was gay. Seemed to work hopefully by the time she comes out of it we’ll be long gone.”  
Tai smiled remembering that he used the same thing to throw Mr. Fujiyama off. He didn’t know why so many people were shocked they weren’t hiding their relationship. Then again neither of them was prone to PDA so it’s understandable why most people wouldn’t notice.  
Meanwhile in the digital world the others discovered the digimon emperor’s base was gone. He must have moved it because it had been discovered. They went to where it had been and found a deep hole. Something had been there.  
Yolei seemed quite stressed and she yelled at Tentomon because he had been watching the area. Hawkmon apologized to Tentomon for her as she continued off. She hammered a rope into the ground and started climbing into the hole. Before she got far Dokugumon appeared. When Hawkmon got hit defending Yolei, Veemon digivolved into Flame-Dramon to fight Dokugumon.  
After he defeated Dokugumon they bandaged up Hawkmon. Yolei was having a breakdown over the fact that she got her digimon hurt. They weren’t sure how to comfort her except for the fact that Hawkmon would be alright. She told them she would watch him and that they should keep searching for the digimon emperor.  
Kari said she’d stay to incase some of the controlled digimon attacked. They agreed to meet back there by nightfall if they didn’t find anything. Gatomon went to see if she could find some herbs for Hawkmon, but Kari wasn’t worried. If things got desperate her dad had taught her attacks she could use in human form and a shield she could put up.   
By nightfall Hawkmon had mostly recovered much to the delight of Yolei. Then they heard a sound which turned out to be the digimon emperor’s base. Yolei was right it was flying. Luckily it seems they weren’t spotted as they weren’t in top shape yet and it wouldn’t be good to attack with just the two of them.  
Soon the others were back and they set up a small camp. Gatomon was awake and saw TK, Cody, Pegasusmon, Submarimon and Tentomon leaving. She wondered what they were up to. It turned out they figure out where the digimon emperor was and didn’t want to risk Yolei because Hawkmon was still recovering. They left Davis as additional defense just in case. Kari sent an update to her father about the progress they were making knowing he’d be worrying about them.  
Cody and TK hadn’t spotted anything yet and Kari and Yolei had headed out after them. Davis had trouble as his digimon couldn’t fly or swim naturally even if the leaps were impressive. Cody while underwater soon spotted the digimon emperors base and sent out the word. Then he spotted a cave and said he was going to try and sneak in.  
Then TK spotted a whirlpool forming. He tried contacting Cody, but it didn’t work so he sent a message to Kari hoping they others would catch up soon to help. Since he had started his training even in his human form TK could feel the evil coming off the whirlpool. It made him feel sick and he remembered Tai telling him that dark things would affect him more than most of the others because his form was a holy beast. The only one who would be affected worse was Kari and that was because in addition to being a holy beast she wielded the crest of light.  
Cody had gotten inside the base with Armadillomon and found what he thought was the engine room. Armadillomon wanted to destroy it, but Cody said they should look around more first. Above TK spotted the base moving closer to the whirlpool which caused him to worry about Cody. Armadillomon could feel the evil getting closer and wasn’t sure what to do.  
Davis meanwhile was trying to find a way to get to the others when he pushed a tree and the land he was on started moving.  
When the base fully left the water TK, Pegasusmon and Tentomon started looking for the tunnel Cody had found. He was on edge because of the shadows, but Pegasusmon reassured him. They lived in the dark whirlpools and fed off fear. He was soon brought back on task when he spotted the cave Cody had entered. When he found Cody Armadillomon had digivolved into Digmon and was setting the captured digimon free. Tentomon started assisting him and TK spotted something he hoped he would never see again. It was Devimon.  
Seeing him brought back memories of the first time Patamon had ever digivolved into Angemon. He remembered how Angemon had sacrificed himself to destroy Devimon and how that had torn him apart. He’d been too young to deal with it and it had certainly left a mark on him. He wondered if he’d been raised as a digimon if he would have been able to do something. He pulled his hat off.  
‘Well I can sure do something now.’  
He pulled his backpack off and told Cody he had some unfinished business to take care of. Cody asked him to wait and Patamon rushed after him, but he didn’t stop. Cody wanted to follow him, but Tentomon said he’d be alight with Patamon and that they still needed to free the rest of the digimon.  
Soon Kari and Yolei had caught up and when the digimon emperor spotted them he sent his now finished creation after them, Kimeramon. It was tough for them just to dodge.  
Cody and Tentomon finished freeing the digimon and now had to get them to safety. Patamon was trying to convince TK to leave, but he was determined. Soon he bumped into the digimon emperor who began to gloat about being the most powerful being in the digital world. TK smirked,  
“You should give up this charade. It’s getting old. You say you’re the most powerful being in the digital world, and yet you have no idea about the powers that are here. You’re a pretender. You’re like that story the emperor’s new clothes.”  
The digimon Emperor glared at him and shouted,  
“You’re nobody! Not like me! You will bow down before me!”  
“Sorry the floor’s kinda dirty.  
“You will listen to me!”  
With that he struck TK with the whip. TK didn’t even flinch as he touched it with his hand.  
“When you can’t think of anything to say do you always resort to fighting?”  
TK’s look became a bit condescending.  
“I guess.”  
“That’s your problem. You don’t know when to talk and when to fight. Now’s a good time to talk. On the other hand…” TK smiled.  
“It’s also a good time to fight!”  
With that he glared and punched the digimon emperor in the face. He turned and tried to hit TK with his whip, but TK caught it and tackled him. Both were unaware of the battle taking place outside. Wormmon tried to come to Ken’s defense, but Patamon stopped him. Then Kimeramon blasted a hole straight through to where they were. TK abandoned his fight with the digimon emperor to help the others. Patamon digivolved into Pegasusmon and they left.  
“Remind me where we left off next time I’m pummeling you.”  
A hit from Pegasusmon caused Kimeramon to let go of Halsemon and Nefertimon and TK said they should take the opportunity to escape. When they were safe, Cody gave him his hat back. Davis was despairing over the fight being over before he got there, but Veemon cheered him up.  
Later that night they found and area that had been almost completely destroyed by Kimeramon. They had armor digivolved, but arrived too late to stop anything. The digimon Emperor was destroying everything in his path.  
Davis gripped his shirt over his heart trying to ignore how much it hurt. He didn’t understand why every time he saw the digimon emperor do something like this it hurt so much. It was like being stabbed in the heart. He didn’t want the others to know until he figured out what it meant. He looked down at the destruction again. It was like he was trying to turn this beautiful world into a barren wasteland.   
TK and Kari were determined to stop him, but as Pegasusmon pointed out they weren’t strong enough, even together and the spires prevented the others from digivolving. Tentomon then said he wouldn’t stop until he ran out of gas and it seemed that gave Cody an idea.  
Meanwhile Tai, Matt and Izzy were going over the information they had on Kimeramon. He had the head of Kabuterimon, the wings of Angemon and Air-dramon, the tail of Monochromon, the legs of Garurumon, the torso of Greymon, the hair of Metal-Greymon, and the arms of skull-Greymon, Kuwagamon, and Devimon.  
It was quite a horrible sight and the three of them shared a look. It wasn’t exactly like the digimon that had attacked them all those years ago, but the concept was the same.  
“And the digimon emperor built this?”  
Tai was nearly vibrating with carefully controlled anger.  
“Izzy is there a way to destroy it like last time?”  
“I don’t know Tai unlike last time he’s not trying to cover up that Kimeramon is an amalgamation of different digimon, but I’ll try. Then we need to figure out how to get to him as the base it always moving.”  
As they were talking they received a message from Cody. He had found a pipeline that would cross paths with the base. It was an oil pipeline. Knowing that Izzy got an idea and he sent the information for it to the others, hoping they would be able to pull it off. Tai was worried about Ken seeing the arms he knew Ken had come into contact with Devimon a digimon who had been created when the dark ocean had gotten their hands on a digi-egg.  
It was a digimon of pure evil and Tai knew that evil would try to reach Ken through whatever darkness it was that was inside him.  
‘We now have a time limit. We need to rescue Ken before the darkness corrupts him completely.’  
In the digital world, Tentomon, Gabumon and Agumon were waiting at the pipeline where the base would eventually cross. When it got close enough they opened the hatch to release the oil and set it on fire. While the digimon emperor was dealing with the fire the others snuck into his base. Part one was complete.  
Gabumon and Agumon sealed off the oil so it wouldn’t continue burning before they began to wait. Izzy got the message that it went well and the three of them settled in for a long night. None of them would be able to sleep knowing the others were in danger.  
They had made it to the engine room, but had been discovered. They were attacked by Bakemon, but managed to get away. Then they were found by Kimeramon. He was joined by several Bakemon. They got out of the way so their digimon wouldn’t have to worry about them while they fought.  
They took out a lot of the Bakemon. Then Kimeramon took out the rest trying to attack them. Just the shockwaves sent them flying. Kimeramon didn’t care who it hit. They sent all their attacks at him, but it didn’t even make a mark. Kari and TK wanted to help, but know the power they could put into their attack in human form would only be about as powerful as Agumon’s pepper breath.  
After a few more hits with the shockwaves their digimon couldn’t hold on anymore and reverted back to the states they held in the human world.  
The digimon emperor who was watching from his control room recognized them from when he met the others at the soccer game.  
“They’re so little.”  
“Yes they’re just like human babies.”  
He’d never thought of it like that before something in him twinges and he told Kimeramon to stop. The others were confused when they saw Kimeramon stop, but took the opportunity to gather their digimon up. They wanted to fall back as their digimon were too weak to fight, but Davis refused.  
“I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t just sit back and watch while he destroys more and more of the digital world with us being unable to stop it. I’m not stopping until he’s down for good and I’m doing this with or without you.”  
Demi-Veemon climbed on top of his head,  
“I’m coming with you Davis.”  
He smiled up at his currently tiny digimon and they headed down to the engine room. The others headed over to help when they saw Kimeramon leave through the opening it had created and they heard an evil laugh.  
“He tried to control the powers of darkness, but it was too much for him.”  
Davis managed to get from the chain he climbed down to the platform when Wormmon jumped in front of him. He tensed prepared for a fight, but Wormmon just said,  
“This way, the engine room is over here, follow me.”  
“Do I look stupid to you? This is some kind of trap.”  
“No, listen you have to believe me this isn’t a trap. I‘m trying to save my master, he created this awful digimon, Kimeramon, and now he can’t control it anymore. I’m afraid things have gone too far and I’m losing him. I hope that if you destroy this place I’ll be able to get him back. I’m willing to help you if you’ll help me. What do you say? Is it a deal?”  
Davis believed him for some reason and agreed. He didn’t know why, but being around Wormmon and knowing he was willing to help them soothed the pain in his heart a little. He felt better than he had in a while as he ran after the rookie digimon. In the center of the room he entered there was something black on a pedestal. Wormmon said Ken had found it and it powered his base.  
As Davis stared at it the thing began to rise and glow. In the center of it a pink light shaped almost like a flower appeared and Demi-Veemon digivolved to Veemon. The light then expanded destroying the walls and revealing a golden digi-egg which floated into Davis’s hands. With it Veemon was able to Golden-armor digivolve to Magnamon who shone with golden armor.  
“The balance of power has been shifted.”


	6. Healing and Reunions

The light Magnamon gave off healed the other digimon unfortunately it also drew Kimeramon back to the base. With all the attacks going on, and the fact that it no longer had a power source, the base was starting to crash. The others were leaving, but Davis said they had to get the digimon emperor out too.  
They found him quickly and tried to explain why what he was doing was wrong and the fact that the digimon were alive. He wouldn’t listen and with a parting shot he ran off. Davis knew they had no time to chase him as they had to get out themselves. He could only hope Wormmon would get Ken out. Digmon blasted a route out so they didn’t have to look for an exit and they flew out on Pegasusmon, Halsemon and Nefertimon.   
They saw the fight between Magnamon and Kimeramon had exited the base as well. They also saw that Magnamon was running out of power. Davis noted the digimon emperor was also watching from a Devi-Dramon. After Ken hit him Wormmon felt there might not be anything left of the kind boy he met so long ago and it tore his heart apart. He felt tears stream down his face as he prepared to do something he knew he wouldn’t survive, but it was for the best.  
“I’ll always remember you for your kindness Ken and one day I hope you’ll realize that the real Ken isn’t the digimon emperor, but the Ken that’s my friend.”  
As he said that he was glowing with the power he was transferring to Magnamon.  
“And only a real friend would do this.”  
With that he knocked Ken off the Devi-dramon and directed it to where Kimeramon was causing him to release Magnamon.  
“Wormmon what are you doing?!”  
“Magnamon it’s all up to you now!” He got hit by Kimeramon but didn’t care he had one last thing to say.  
“Please Magnamon save Ken for me. Here’s what little energy I have left. Use it!”  
Wormmon’s power reenergized Magnamon and he was able to continue fighting. He managed to use one final attack to defeat Kimeramon before reverting back to Demi-Veemon. Davis rushed over and held his digimon to his chest with a soft smile.  
“You were awesome.”  
Then Davis spotted something in the sand where Demi-Veemon had been. It was a crest like the ones Kari and TK had around their necks except this one had a different symbol. It looked a bit like a flower. The others headed over to confront the digimon emperor who was talking about resetting the digital world. Then he got hit with the reality that it wasn’t a game.  
He suddenly remembered the digimon at the soccer game. They were real then that meant everything he’d done…  
“What have I done?”  
He started seeing all the things he had done in a new light.  
“I’m a monster! I can’t believe the things I have done!”  
“Well at least you’ve realized what you’ve done. It’s not too late to make a fresh start.”  
Ken however wasn’t listening. Sobbing he tore off the outfit he was wearing until he was left in just his uniform. Then something broke through to him.  
“Wormmon!”  
“He’s still breathing.”  
In a daze he walked over.  
“You’ve returned to your old self. I knew you could do it Ken.”  
“I’m sorry it’s too late for me.” Ken  
“It’s never too late to be sorry.”  
“Wormmon is absolutely right Ken.”  
Then everybody looked at the crest in Davis’s hand as it began to glow. It floated over to Ken who held his hands up for it.  
“Why is it coming to me?”  
“Because it belongs to you Ken. It’s the crest of kindness.” Wormmon  
“There must be some mistake. I’ve been anything but kind.”  
“That’s what Wizardmon meant when he told us that kindness would release the golden radiance. Ken must be the key to unlocking the power.”  
“I told you that deep inside you were kind.”  
Ken knelt next to Wormmon taking his digimon gently into his arms.  
“Wormmon I’m sorry, don’t go. You’re my best friend.”  
“You’re my best friend too. Goodbye Ken.”  
With that he couldn’t hold on any long and burst into data fragments.  
“Wormmon no!”  
“He’s gone Ken.” TK  
“He can’t be! Not again, Wormmon’s gone just like my brother. I was helpless to save him and now I can’t save Wormmon either! WHY DO I KEEP LOSING PEOPLE! I came to the digital world to get away from all those feeling, but I just can’t escape.”  
“There are still people who care about you Ken.” Everyone jerked over to see Tai had shown up along with Izzy. Matt had stayed behind just in case.  
“Sorry I’m late. I’d hoped I would arrive in time to help.”  
“I got to go.”  
“Ken there’s something I need to do first. I need you to trust me and kneel in front of me. It’s gonna hurt, but believe me when I say it’s better to do now than wait.”  
Ken nodded. He didn’t care about the pain he deserved it after all he had done. He knelt in front of Tai facing away from him and then jolted when it felt like a hot poker was being held to the back of his neck. The others apart from Izzy stared in shock at Tai who had stuck his hand into the back of Ken’s neck. Davis was about to rush forward when Tai pulled back revealing Ken’s uninjured neck and holding something black and pulsing. Ken brushed a hand across the back of his neck before looking at what Tai was holding.  
“What is that?” Ken  
“This is what has caused a lot of our problems. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I know what it has done, especially to you.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Ken this is something that corrupts the virtues that cause our digimon to digivolve. Courage becomes cowardice, hope becomes despair and kindness-“  
“Becomes cruelty.”  
“That’s right. I got a scan of it last time I saw you and Izzy has been analyzing it as well as he could from the data I got. This has been twisting your mind and it has been inside of you for a long time.”  
“It’s… not my fault?”  
“No it’s not your fault. The fact that you were able to overcome it before it was removed is astonishing though. I’m impressed.”  
“It doesn’t matter. Wormmon is still…”  
Tai’s face fell in empathy for Ken. He took the dark thing and set in in the container he brought before handing it to Izzy.  
“Remember to try and get whatever information from it you can, but if it becomes dangerous destroy it.”  
Izzy nodded and Tai turned back to Ken.  
“I’d like you to come back with me Ken. I need to make sure there’s no lingering darkness and I’m sure your parents would like to see you.”   
Ken nodded, and got up to follow them back to the portal. They arrived back at the camp where Matt was frantically trying to get rid of Jun. Apparently she had shown up after Tai and Izzy left and was wondering where everyone else was, but also trying to take advantage of being alone with Matt. Before long they were packing up to head back home when they came across a problem. With the addition of Ken and Jun there weren’t enough seats.  
“Ok looks like some of us are going to have to share or take the bus.”  
Before Jun could say anything Tai sat in the back pulling Matt onto his lap. Kari and TK quickly decided to share along with Ken and Davis. Yolei claimed the front seat and Jun, Cody and Izzy were right behind her. Ken was still in a state of depression at the loss of his digimon, but for some reason sitting with Davis helped.  
They decided that after all that had happened it would be best if he was brought home first. When they arrived Davis spontaneously made to decision to ask if he could stay with Ken,  
“No offense Ken, but I think you could use the company.”  
“I don’t mind. I don’t really want to be alone right now.”  
“Ken I will come by after school tomorrow ok?” Tai  
“Yes that’s fine.”  
As soon as they got out Kari and TK split seats. Jun was practically bursting with questions by the time Ken and Davis were out of the car. It was only the glare from the other passengers when she tried to speak before that stopped her.  
“So that was the boy genius right?” Jun  
“Yes that was him.” Izzy  
“Where did you find him?”  
“He was at the camp site. Not a bad place to run away to. There’s shelter and food if you know how to get them.” Cody  
“Why’d he run away?”  
“It’s none of our business.” Matt  
She seemed ready to ask again before Tai glared at her.  
“It’s none of our business Jun. Ken has been through a lot and he doesn’t need to be bombarded with questions right now.” Tai  
It didn’t take long for them to get home and dropped off, but it was plain to see that sleep would not come easy to them. Luckily it didn’t show much at school the next day other than as a slight distraction. The day went well with the only incident being Davis being upset over TK being better at basketball.  
After school Tai and Davis headed to Ken’s to retrieve him. When they arrived Tai did a quick scan to confirm that Ken was recovering from whet Izzy had figured out was somewhat like a seed packet. He was doing better, but showed reluctance when they asked him to come with them to the digital world.  
“Ken I will not force you, but believe me when I say it will be better for you. I know you still blame yourself for not being able to fight off the dark seed and this will help with the guilt. Besides we need all the help we can get with rebuilding.”  
“What if they don’t want me there?”  
“As long as you show up with one of us and are seen helping you should be fine. The people of the digital world are forgiving to those who are truly sorry. Even some of the people who worked for the dark masters are now treated with kindness. You’ll be fine.”  
With a small amount of reluctance Ken agreed. They met the others in the digital world and spent the day repairing different areas. After a while Ken began to smile faintly as he got involve with the work. He was surprised after a while when Davis showed up with a newly digivolved Ex-Veemon, but brushed it off and sent the pair to continue working. As the days passed Ken grew restless. He started remembering things from his childhood with Sam, but then he remembered things he couldn’t possibly have gone through.  
He remembered a beautiful garden flourishing under his gentle touch. He remembered a love which broke through his shy constitution and he remembered celebrating a new child born into a family connected by love more than blood. After a few days he talked to Tai about it. He didn’t look surprised, but rather he looked like he’d been expecting it.  
After they got back from the digital world Tai gathered them all together and began to talk. At the end the four new digi-destined were stunned. Tai left them to process as he brought Ken to the digital world to bring him to primary village. It was time. The young digimon left him alone because he was with Tai. Though they were still suspicious they knew Tai wouldn’t let anything hurt the baby digimon.  
“How do I find which one is Wormmon?”  
“I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. The only one who can find Wormmon is you. Your heart is connected to his. He was made for you.”  
Ken looked around trying to find Wormmon’s digi-egg. He remembered back to when he and Wormmon first met. Wormmon had told him that he was glad Ken was his partner because Ken was gentle and kind, but he had to be strong cause kind and gentle hearts were easily crushed by darkness. Wormmon told him that the digivice belonged to him.  
“You are a digi-destined and no one can take that from you. Evil forces will try, but you can’t listen to them. Never forget who you are.”  
Back in the present he felt sad because he did forget. He tried so hard to become Sam and cheer his parent up that he forgot who he was. He forgot the kind and gentle child he had been. He needed to go back to being himself. With the realization his crest began to glow along with one of the digi-eggs. Tai smiled watching as Ken walked towards it a glint of recognition in his eyes.  
As soon as he touched the egg it hatched revealing Leafmon the baby form of Wormmon. Tai smiled as he watched the reunion. This was good for both of them. With Leafmon Ken should start to remember the better memories the dark seed had locked away. He would recover given time.


	7. Hurting and Healing

Ken was feeling happier than he had in years. After dinner he snuck a portion of his food into his room for a recently digivolved Minomon who was so happy he started bouncing on the bed. Ken smiled at the peace that now filled his digimon. Wormmon had gone through so much to keep him as safe as possible so now he was going to protect his friend.   
After getting some sleep he felt something in his room which jolted him awake. Seeing a strange woman there he pulled the sleeping Minomon to his chest in case she tried anything. With his regained memories he might be able to attack, but he wasn’t sure. She called him pathetic and he wondered if this was the person who sent him that e-mail. Before he could do anything she vanished and he pushed it out of his mind.  
Tai said they were going to work on Primary village tomorrow and he needed rest. Ken enjoyed working in Primary Village. It wasn’t that damaged as he’d mostly ignored it, the most damaged places were on the outskirts of the village where it connected to other areas, and playing with the baby digimon was soothing.  
He was watching a group of them with Davis when he saw something.  
“Davis I think I see something so I’m going to check it out. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”  
He wasn’t sure if Davis heard him as he just continued playing with the beach ball. When he and Wormmon got closer they stopped in surprise. It was that woman. She pulled a hair out and pushed it into the control spire and it changed into a digimon. The woman left and then Thundermon spotted them. As Ken was about to be attacked, Wormmon digivolved to Stingmon to block the hit. Then the fake Thundermon ran off attacking Cody. Stingmon followed quickly arriving in time to prevent Cody from being hurt.  
“Cody that’s not a digimon it’s a control spire!”  
Stingmon danced through the air avoiding attacks until he was finally able to land a blow which destroyed the fake. When it was over Ken explained what he saw and what had happened last night. They agreed it was important to start destroying the control spires again.  
Back at school Ken noticed he didn’t do all that well on the math test. He still got an average score, but he was so distracted he couldn’t focus. Most of the points he got off were because he didn’t finish the test. As he was walking around he saw Davis and they walked to the river. It was a bit awkward for Ken who had begun to remember moments with Daisuke. He wondered if he remembered anything, but didn’t know how to ask.  
TK saw them talking and was pleased Davis had forgiven Ken he only hoped Ken would be able to forgive himself. Currently the only people still holding out were Yolei and Cody. Ken unknown to the other kept returning to the digital world late at night to destroy more control spires.

Mimi was having lunch with Palmon. When Palmon went to get flowers she spotted the woman making a digimon out of a control spire. It was going to destroy the dam. The fake Golemon knocked Palmon unconscious and Mimi screamed for help. It didn’t take long for everyone to arrive, but Ken.  
Unfortunately none of their attacks were working. Davis wanted to resort to extreme measures, but Yolei didn’t know the digimon was a fake and was against destroying it. Cody agreed with her, but Davis argued they had no other choice if they didn’t the town would be flooded. Sometimes being a hero wasn’t pretty, but it was about doing what had to be done.  
Yolei was surprised about Davis’s vehement defense of Ken. He may be helping them, but she didn’t trust him. Then she heard Mimi suggest asking Ken for help. She sent a message to him ignoring Yolei’s protests that he was dangerous. Then Yolei got distracted by their digimon reverting back to their resting states. Golemon was about to destroy the dam when it was stopped by Stingmon. As they were fighting Palmon woke up and explained what she saw revealing Golemon as a fake.  
This caused the others to remember what Ken said about Thundermon back at Primary Village. Yolei felt terrible about how wrong she’d been about Ken. Her feeling revived Hawkmon who digivolved into Aquilamon. With his help it didn’t take long to destroy the fake.  
After that while the others were rebuilding Ken went to destroy the control spires. He said that just looking at them made him sick. Wormmon got him to smile when he said that since Ken couldn’t figure them out he’d just knock them all down. They got a lot of them knocked down before deciding to take a break. Ken offered to let him have half of his jelly roll as soon as they got home to Wormmon’s delight.  
Meanwhile the other digi-destined were rushing to Ken’s old base. They gotten word from Izzy that if they didn’t shut the power surge off it would explode. Somehow Davis knew the surge could only be contained by Ken’s crest and sent him an e-mail. Unfortunately at that time he was arguing with the women. Luckily Wormmon picked up the phone and mentioned the emergency which snapped Ken into action.  
He had gotten information though which was something. Acting like a frustrated child had gotten her to reveal a lot more then he’d thought. She had used his pain and guilt from Sam’s death to infiltrate his mind which had been left open to attack by the dark seed. When he saw them he pulled out his digivice. When the dark seed had been removed it had faded from black to purple. He noticed that their digimon looked worn and had probably just reverted back to their resting states except for Ex-Veemon who was still fighting.  
Davis was ready to help, but Ken pushed him away. He didn’t want anyone else to die because of his mistakes.  
“He still has nightmares, horrible ones. I do too.” Stingmon  
“It doesn’t matter what happens to me as long as I can accomplish my goal.” Ken  
With that Davis couldn’t take it anymore and slapped him.  
“I’m so tired of your lone wolf act. I’m not going to let you do this by yourself get it? What about the people who care about you? At least think of your digimon. We’re here, we’re helping and that’s that.”  
Ken looked at Davis who continued to rant about how he couldn’t fix his mistakes if he was no longer there and how everyone messed up sometimes.  
“Don’t give up fix it!”  
“I don’t know how.”  
“Do you think I do? You just keep trying until something works and when it gets really bad you hang with your friends because they’re always your friends even when you mess up.”  
When understanding was achieved between them their digivices began to glow and they could feel their hearts beating together. Stingmon and ex-Veemon DNA digivolved into Pail-dramon and began to fight Okuwamon. Davis and Ken took the opportunity to enter the fallen base.  
TK despaired over all the debris Ken and Davis simply leapt over it in sync. Unfortunately even though the crest stopped the overload it wasn’t enough to stop the base from exploding. Ken forced himself to think then he noticed the pipes and began following them.  
When he arrived he saw an opening that he now knew was a connection to the dark ocean. Just when he thought it was the end Pail-dramon burst in and destroyed the connection stopping the explosion. Upon request from Ken Pail-dramon destroyed what remained of the base before reverting back to Leafmon and Chibomon. When they got back to earth they agreed to meet up at Izzy’s the next day as he said he’d explain DNA digivolving to them.  
When they arrived he started with the basics.  
“What DNA digivolving does is take the strongest part of one digimon and merging it with the strongest part of another, which is why they are stronger than they would be just working together. It’s also why some digimon cannot DNA digivolve with each other.”  
“Really?” Kari  
“Yeah take Angemon and Angewomon they’re too similar to get anything out of DNA digivolving so it wouldn’t work.”  
“Anything else?”  
“Yes DNA digivolving has happened before creating Omnimon.”  
He told a story about what happened during the summer and Gennai asking them to give up the power of the crests to protect the digital world and awaken the guardians. Tai refused because for one giving up the crests meant that not only would their digimon not be able to digivolve to their ultimate forms, but they wouldn’t be able to digivolve at all for another the shield couldn’t stop all darkness and Tai said he’d rather have to be fighting it off constantly than be unable to fight when the shield no longer worked or to rely on guardians that may not be able to help.  
As a temporary measure Tai used their energy to create a barrier around the digital world. Izzy believed Tai was right in what they did. If he hadn’t as Ken was a digi-destined even a barrier made from their crests would have let him through as it wouldn’t have recognized him as a threat.  
Before they could continue their discussion Izzy’s mother came in with snacks. The next day Demi-Veemon was being asked what it was like to DNA digivolve. He said it was bigger than when he first digivolved to Ex-Veemon and that it wasn’t like two minds in one body, but like two minds merged into one super being.  
They continued discussing possibilities until they were in the digital world then they focused on destroying control spires. When they got back they noticed Ken stayed later and continued destroying control spires. It worried Davis how much time he would spend on it.  
‘He still feels guilt and it wasn’t even his fault.’  
Then they got a message from that woman who told them to meet her at the Giga house. It was obviously a trap, but they knew they had to face her sooner or later. At least this way they knew a trap was coming and could prepare as much as possible. When they arrived they saw Ken was there as well. Veemon and Wormmon were happy to see each other and Ken smiled softly at the antics of his digimon before frowning at the house.  
They decided to send a few people in first to scope it out just in case things went badly that way the rest could contact the others before heading in to help. Davis, Ken and Cody were going in first while TK, Kari and Yolei would wait.  
They managed to get in by climbing up to an open window when they heard something it was coming from the stove where there was an army of Roachmon. Ken shuddered he hated to fight these type of digimon, not because they were particularly powerful, but because they tended to use garbage as weapons.  
Since they were severely outnumbered they decided it might be better to escape. When they got to the shower they used the nozzle to knock most of them down the drain. They barely had time to rest before they were confronted by a group of Kunemon.   
When Ken and Stingmon got too close they were shocked and fell into the washing machine. Luckily Cody and Submarimon were able to get them out. After a while of traveling through the vents they found the woman playing a flute. When they prepared to DNA digivolve she played a tune on her flute which it seemed gave her the ability to control Stingmon.  
When Armadillomon digivolved to Digmon the woman was able to control him as well, this led Ken and Cody to the same conclusion. The flute was only able to control insect digimon. Before they could think of anything to do Digmon knocked them down onto the web of Dokugumon. Ken and Davis had their legs free and Cody had his arms free, but everything else was stuck.   
Cody tried contacting the others, but they were also being attacked by insect digimon. Cody looked around trying to figure out something else he could do when he saw the air conditioning unit. If they could turn it on they could blow Dokugumon off the web. With his feet Ken picked up a piece of wood that fell down with them. He hoped this worked. They only had one shot as the other pieces were out of reach.  
He tossed it to Davis who kicked it at the thermostat. To their relief Dokugumon was blown off and the web was destroyed freeing them. The climbed down off the bed and Ex-Veemon was tossed down and ended up reverting back to Veemon. With some effort they were able to open a drawer and used a slipper to climb in so Stingmon and Digmon couldn’t reach them.  
Now it was only a question of if the drawer would hold long enough for them to get help. Ken and Cody began trying to figure out how to break the woman’s control over their digimon. Ken asked if Cody had ever heard of the story of the Moth and the bat. The moth had used a sound similar enough to the bats echolocation causing it to get confused enabling the moth to escape.  
“How does that help us?” Davis  
“If we can disrupt her music in some way the digimon will return to normal.” Ken  
They sent the information to Yolei and she hurried to the computer where Kari and TK were. She managed to create a file from the flute playing to distort the actual flute. She played it just in time to stop the insects from attacking.  
Davis smirked at the woman and in anger she jumped down after them. Jumping from such a height without injuries could only mean one thing, she was a digimon. She revealed herself to be Arukenimon. She hit them all into the hallway where the others were. Ex-Veemon and Stingmon DNA digivolved into Pail-Dramon and he was able to draw Arukenimon away. Yolei and the others went ahead to prepare for Arukenimon while Ken and Davis were given the instructions to lure her to the dining room.  
After giving them enough time to draw ahead they started to head to the dining room knowing she would follow. The first people they crossed were Yolei and Shurimon who bathed Arukenimon in salt. Then Digmon sprayed her with bug spray. Then she was dizzy enough to stumble over to Kari and TK who shocked her using a covered wire tapped into an electrical socket.   
While she was still reeling from the volts Pail-Dramon hit her with his strongest attack causing her to collapse. Now they wanted answers. They were prepared to lock her up when another digimon showed up. It was Mummymon and unfortunately with his help Arukenimon was able to escape.  
They may not have gotten the information they wanted, but they did learn that Arukenimon wasn’t working alone and they were all unhurt which was pretty good considered how many insects went after them.


	8. Thoughts on Destiny

They were having problems with Ken and Cody. They weren’t fighting, but it was more like they were doing their best to ignore each other. Yolei wondered if there was anything she could do about it so she asked Tai.  
“There’s not much advice I could give you. They were friends back when he was Iori instead of Cody, but you know my policy on memories. I’d say it’s best to just wait it out. They’re both pretty good at spotting meddling so you’ll need to be subtle if you’re going to try something like that.”  
Yolei frowned in frustration before thanking Tai for his advice and heading out.  
“It’s funny how history repeats itself.”  
“What do you mean dad?”  
“Ken and Iori also had a period of mutually pretending the other didn’t exist although not much of their work outside of training overlapped so it was easy.”  
“Really what caused it?”  
“Miyako.”  
“Really?”  
“Yup, Iori had always loved her, but for a while she had a major crush on Ken.”  
“What about Ken?”  
“He liked her so they went out a couple times before Ken broke it off.”  
“Why’d he do that?”  
“He met someone else. He was fond of Miyako, but he was in love.”  
“Will you tell me who?”  
“Well I guess if you feel it won’t influence how you act around them.”  
“I’ll do my best.”  
“Daisuke.”  
“Davis?”  
“Yup, they had been married for more than 10 years when we got attacked.”  
Kari was pleased when she didn’t let the new knowledge affect her behavior. She thought about telling TK, but decided she should ask first. After they destroyed a lot of control spires they decided to take a break. Kari and TK went to get some drinks and Yolei decided it was time to enact her plan. She roped Davis into pretending Flame-dramon couldn’t knock down a control spire and asked Cody and Ken to work together  
The plan worked with Armadillomon and Wormmon, but Ken and Cody saw through it easily. Yolei started yelling at Cody for being stubborn, Davis tried to calm her down and Ken walked off. He didn’t want to be somewhere he felt unwanted. Cody didn’t want to admit it but he felt guilty about causing Ken to leave, but he didn’t like the fact that Yolei was trying to force them to like each other.  
Soon Kari and TK got back and it didn’t take long to notice the tension. Kari sighed when she got the full story.  
“Dad did warn you about meddling.”  
“Those two are both so stubborn.”  
Then Davis mentioned speaking to both of them about acting their age and caused everyone including Veemon to choke on their drinks before laughing. Then they stopped because they saw a car in the distance. When it got close enough they saw it was Arukenimon and Mummymon.   
When she pulled out her hairs for spirit needles they all digivolved and she drove off. Then 100 control spires came together to form Black War-Greymon a mega digimon. It brought Kari back to when they were fighting the dark masters. Even all of them in ultimate form weren’t enough. They had more experience now, but she wasn’t sure it would be enough. Unfortunately with a hit from Black War-Greymon neither Gatomon nor Patamon were strong enough to digivolve.  
She hoped Yolei would be back with Ken in time. If nothing else Pail-dramon could help them escape. It wasn’t long before she saw Aquilamon and Stingmon. She noted with a bit of confusion that Ken was holding his cheek, but brushed it off they could get to it later. Unfortunately it seemed Pail-dramon wasn’t enough and his attack hit them all reverting Pail-dramon back to Leafmon and Chibomon and the others back to their resting states. Everyone was injured and it seemed like the end for them when Black War-Greymon disobeyed Arukenimon.  
He left to find a more worthy opponent. They took the chance presented by Arukenimon being distracted to escape. They all were too injured to fight. When they got home they told the others what happened while getting their wounds treated. Joe agreed to drive Ken back to his place so he wouldn’t have to hop to the digital world to go home. When everyone had gotten treated Tai made his decision.  
“I don’t want any of you to face Black War-Greymon if you can help it. Matt and I will try to find out where he is. We are the only ones who have mega digimon and while Pail-Dramon is stronger than your average ultimate he’s no match for Black War-Greymon on his own.”  
The others agreed that while Matt and Tai sought out Black War-Greymon they would continue to destroy the control spires. They got to a new section of the digital world and Gatomon recognized it as the place where she had lost her tail ring. They all agreed to help look. Ken was uneasy as he looked around. Something about this forest felt off to him. Then he spotted what seemed to be the dark ocean and began to scream.  
Kari ran to him as quickly as she could and started when she heard him speak about the dark ocean. As they got him to his feet they started walking away and unfortunately went through a portal. They thought they had gotten lost when they spotted Davis. They ran towards him, but were shocked when he ran through them. As he walked off they heard him shouting for them.  
Yolei kept trying to find ways to cheer the other two up, but it was like they didn’t hear her. She got so frustrated with being ignored she yelled at them and stormed off. She cooled off pretty quickly and then felt guilty for shouting at them. Then she was at a cliff she saw something glinting and wondered if it was Gatomon’s tail ring.   
When she tried climbing down she lost her footing and fell. Kari tried to catch her, but only ended up falling down too. When she woke up she tried to get Hawkmon to digivolve, but he couldn’t. Then Yolei began to panic and Kari slapped her to snap her out of it. When Hawkmon and Gatomon climbed up the Cliffside to get something to help Kari and Yolei climb up the pair began to talk.  
Kari told Yolei about the time she got pulled into the world of the dark ocean. Before she could tell the complete story Gatomon and Hawkmon sent down a vine for them to climb up. Ken apologized for being unable to help them. Then Kari heard waves and ran off. Soon she was in front of the dark ocean and before long Ken and Yolei were next to her though it seemed Yolei couldn’t see the ocean.  
Ken was surprised Kari had been there as he thought he was the only one.  
“I got pulled here by the shadows before, but my dad and TK came to rescue me.”  
Yolei wondered if they were there because the forces guarding the digital world were weaker than normal due to the control spires.  
The dark ocean began to pull at Kari’s heart and she began to despair.  
‘Will what happened to Queen Amalthea happen to me?’  
Then Blossomon appeared. Fortunately behind her a portal to the digital world appeared. This gave Wormmon and Hawkmon the ability to digivolve to Stingmon and Aquilamon. They weren’t strong enough with just the two of them, but Kari was sinking into her despair and couldn’t help until Yolei slapped her and told her she was being ridiculous because of course she was strong enough to fight the darkness and in her mind Kari heard the words of her father,  
‘Don’t ever think that you’re not strong enough Kari. You’re a digimon of light the darkness hurts you the most, but that also means that you hurt the darkness the most as well. That’s why it’s hunting you. You’re stronger than it is and it fears you.’  
With that Kari clasped hands with Yolei feeling her will to fight return. Then they began to glow and Aquilamon and Gatomon DNA digivolved to Sylphymon. They easily defeated Blossomon and then they reverted back to Salmon and Pururumon. The light they caused helped the others find them. TK ran over and hugged Kari he’d been so scared that he’d lost her for good.   
Tai nearly lost it when they told him what happened. He was worried about Kari and he’d had no luck with finding Black-war-Greymon. Agumon promised to keep an eye out, but not engage because he couldn’t digivolve without Tai. He showed some meditation techniques to Kari and Ken to help them block out the call of the dark ocean, but it really depended on their will to fight it.  
He also worried about the digital world. If they were able to stumble unknowingly into a portal to the dark ocean then something was very wrong. He could only hope that it was something that could be fixed.  
In the digital world Agumon discovered Black War-Greymon and began talking to him. When Agumon said he became War-Greymon when he digivolved Black War-Greymon asked if he came from control spires as well.  
“No I came from a digi-egg.”  
He wondered if he was imagining it at first, but Black War-Greymon seemed disappointed. Agumon said he wanted to help and Black Way-Greymon began to speak about all the questions that have been bothering hm. Agumon wasn’t sure if he could answer all of them, but he would do his best. When he was asked where his heart was he responded that he wasn’t sure it was different for each digimon.  
“If you don’t know where it is, how can you be sure you have one? How do you know it’s not just an illusion?”  
“When you really care about someone, more than you care about yourself it’s called love and I know it comes from the heart. I just don’t know where it is.”  
He continued to ask questions about the heart, but Agumon couldn’t answer them all. But there were some he could.  
“I am a digimon created from control spires what use do I have for a heart.”  
“So you can be a friend.”  
“A friend?”  
“Yeah if you care about me then we’re friends and if we’re friends then you have a heart. You can’t have one without the other.”  
“What if I’m not capable of being a friend?”  
“Everyone is capable of being a friend.”  
“Your logic confuses me. How does it feel to be a friend or does it just happen?”  
“I might not be able to answer all of your questions, but I know a couple people who might be able to.”

While Agumon was talking to Black War-Greymon another fight was going on between Arukenimon, Mummymon and the digi-destined. They were trying to protect the destiny stone, but they were all caught. It seemed there wasn’t much they could do when Ken showed up freeing Ex-Veemon who was able to free the others.  
Stingmon, Ex-Veemon, Aquilamon, and Gatomon DNA digivolved to Pail-Dramon and Sylphymon hoping they would be strong enough to fight. Then the destiny stone got damaged and Black War-Greymon nearly collapsed in pain. That was when Tai arrived.  
“I’m sorry Black war-Greymon, but we don’t have time to talk right now. Someone is trying to destroy one of the destiny stones. If you help us defend it. I’ll do my best to help you. If I cannot help you myself I’ll find someone who can.”  
With that Agumon warp digivolved to War-Greymon and the three of them were off. As they arrived they noticed Arukenimon and Mummymon leaving, but they prioritized protecting the destiny stone. Black War-Greymon easily destroyed the fake digimon attacking it and the pain he felt earlier eased.  
“If you’re seeking a destiny I’d say you’ve found it.” Tai  
“What do you mean?”  
“The destiny stones are protected in three ways the fact that not many know they exist as more than rumors, the strength of the shielding, and the fact that no one knows where they are and yet you who have never even heard of them managed to lead us to the one being attacked without error. I think you’re meant to protect them.”  
“How could that be? I am made from control spires.”  
“I don’t know, but I‘ll do my best to find out. Until then will you watch the destiny stones?”  
“You’re asking me?”  
“Everybody has the right to choose their own destiny.”  
Black War-Greymon nodded and decided to guard the stones. If nothing else anyone trying to destroy the destiny stones would be stronger than the average digimon.


	9. Finding Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I could have been mean and actually waited for Christmas to post this but decided it was close enough

When they got back to earth Yolei went on a school trip leaving Poromon with Izzy. He noticed that as time passed he was getting more and more tired. With a few scans he was able to hypothesize that the exhaustion was a result of being away from Yolei and it was because of their bond.  
Digimon already had a harder time gaining energy outside of the digital world. It was one of the reasons why it took Tai so long to recover from the fight. The bond enabled them to share energy, but that only worked efficiently when in close proximity.   
The best thing for him would be to take him back to the digital world until Yolei got back. Ken agreed to take him as the others were already there trying to prevent Arukenimon and Mummymon from going after the destiny stones. Ken not wanting Poromon to get hurt quickly dropped him off with Yolei before heading back to the digital world to fight.  
Yolei met Joe’s brother Jim and Sora’s father and they told her about their theory that digimon were once just data about various legends, but with time eventually evolved their own minds and souls. Yolei decided to share this with Tai and Izzy when she got back and see what they thought about it.  
As soon as they were all available they gathered at Tai’s place and Yolei told him about what she learned.  
“It is possible, with the time disturbance created by Apocalymon there’s no telling how old the digital world really is. It’s also possible that old legends come from digimon that enter the human world when the digital world is out of balance.”  
“Why does what happens in the digital world have such an impact here?”  
“The digital world was either created from or connected to this world because of the development of the internet, if the digital world is the light side, then the dark ocean is the dark side. The darkness began to creep into the digital world long before the death of my mother. They’re trying to destroy the destiny stones because it will destabilize the digital world causing it to figuratively crash into earth. Other worlds will be caught up in this and all will fall into darkness.”  
With heavy thoughts they traveled to the digital world. Cody watched TK and he seemed tense and angry like he’d been back at the digimon emperor’s base. It worried him how much anger TK had it was almost like he became another person. He even spoke about destroying Arukenimon and Mummymon if that was what it took to defend the digital world. With Black War-Greymon’s help they were able to defend the destiny stone, but they got away. The stone was damaged, but still whole. TK held Patamon gently to his chest with a relieved smile.  
The next night Cody decided to approach Matt about TK and found him with Tai. He explained what he saw and both Matt and Tai looked sad.  
“It’s because of the battle with Devimon.” Matt  
“What happened?”  
“None of us were strong enough to fight him and Angemon sacrificed himself to destroy Devimon and protect TK. The problem is that Angemon and TK are bonded so TK didn’t just watch Angemon die, he felt it. He was only eight years old which is young for humans, but he was pretty much a baby in digimon standards. If I‘d been able to keep him out of the fight I would have.  
He didn’t know about how digimon can come back to life so he thought he saw the last of Patamon and it really traumatized hm. He still carries the scars from it. He gained an important lesson that the importance of life outweighs the power of darkness.” Tai  
“What do you mean by bonded?”  
“Our digimon were created from us. The researchers got a scan of us as children and used that scan to form the digi-eggs, crests and digivices. That kind of birth creates a bond. Through that bond they knew us from the moment they were born. It also meant we instinctively trusted them to help and protect us. Our energy flows into them enabling them to digivolve and they protect us. It’s a symbiotic relationship.” Matt  
“But you can digivolve too can’t you?”  
“Matt and I can now, but we had to regain our energy first. See the digital world gives off its own energy which digimon instinctively gather and harvest much like plants gather energy from the sun. Earth doesn’t have this energy so when digimon come here they do anything they can to conserve energy. They also need to eat and sleep a lot more.” Tai  
“I understand now how TK feels. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to Uppamon.”  
“You’re not alone anyone with a digimon feels the same way.” Matt  
Cody thanked them and headed off.  
“Tai what should we do?”  
“Right now there’s nothing we can do.”  
“Why is the digital world becoming unstable?”  
“I think it’s because some of the destiny stones are damaged. With enough time they’ll repair themselves, but if Arukenimon and Mummymon keep this up they won’t get that time.”  
“Can we do something about that?”  
“I hope so. I know where the last stone is because I’ve seen it. We’ll head there tomorrow. Tonight I need some rest.”  
The next day Tai brought Matt to a forest of bamboo.  
“Tai how come you know where the stone is and I don’t?”  
“Because I came across it when you were pregnant and still refusing to leave the castle.”  
Before too long they arrived at what appeared to be a pool of soup.  
“This is where the destiny stone is?”  
“Yup, it’s what gives the soup broth an unusual and addictive flavor.”  
“Is it harmful?”  
“Only to the darkness, the destiny stone is a part of light after all. They’re connected to the guardians.”  
“The four guardians“  
“Yes, but that’s not important right now.”  
Before they could bring out the destiny stone Arukenimon and Mummymon stumbled upon the pool, Mummymon went to drink the soup and Digitamamon tried to stop him before being flung off. When Mummymon lapped up the soup it revealed the destiny stone. Before Arukenimon and Mummymon could do anything Tai stepped out and was soon joined by the others who all DNA digivolved.   
While they fought Tai turned towards the destiny stone knowing it was time for explanations and he knew who would be giving them. Matt called the others over and they all held their digivices and soon a being appeared in the sky, Azulongmon.  
Black War-Greymon came to the area and asked him if his destiny was truly to defend the destiny stones.  
“That is for you to decide. You are in an excellent position to defend them, but like all beings with their own spirit you also have your own choice.”  
Black War-Greymon was unsatisfied, but accepted the answer. He decided to travel as he could always feel when the destiny stones were being harmed and travel was good for soul searching.   
“You gave him some of your power didn’t you?”  
“You always were good at sensing even the tiniest bit of my energy Taichi. Yes the control spires were made to keep our powers sealed away. The point was to unbalance the digital world. That is why they chose Ken for the construction of them. He would not have registered as an enemy until it was too late. I am one of the four mega digimon who preserve the balance of the digital world. We should have been freed when you defeated the dark masters, but the seal held. It was weak enough that we were starting to break through and that was when Gennai asked you to give up the power in your crests.   
You were right to deny him. Even if you had we still wouldn’t have been able to free ourselves before the control spires reinforced the seal. However due to the boost in power you gave us we were able to sense things around us. We knew the control spires would prevent the digimon from digivolving so we searched for a way to bypass that and found three digimon capable of an ancient form of digivolving.”  
“Armor digivolving?”  
“Yes those digimon were bonded to the three new digi-destined. The match would not be perfect like with the digimon born from you, but the connections were still strong. Balance was returning slowly to the digital world as you destroyed the control spires, but I felt the one hundred controls spires coming together and I knew the creature that was about to be created would destroy the destiny stones under the command of his creators so I added a small bit of my power to the mix which gave him a connection to the stones and a heart of his own.”  
“That could have backfired so easily.” Tai  
“It was indeed a gamble, but I had faith in you. You had among you children connected to the crests of light and hope and it was that power that awakened me. Even in the deepest darkness there is a light and that light is called hope. It is what separated the crests of light and hope as Holy instead of just virtuous. The other crests come from the power that is inside the digi-destined’ s hearts, but the crest of light gives light to this world and the crest of hope shines no matter how hard darkness tried to hide it. That along with Taichi’s power was what enabled me to come here even though the bonds holding me down, though greatly weakened, are still there.”  
“Why Tai’s power?” Matt  
“Did you never wonder why Taichi was able to fight off an army of digimon and still have enough power to create 10 portals to the human world without any kind of digital device? The answer is there in the name of his ultimate form, Ryukomon dragon child.”  
It hit Matt first just what that meant and he looked over at Tai who was clenching his fists.  
“Tai I thought you said your parents were dead. Why didn’t you tell us about this?” TK  
“I’m afraid that is my fault. I fell in love with his mother and left my guardianship position in the hands of my subordinates. For a long time I ruled the kingdom of virtue with her and the others allowed it because there was peace in the world. After a great many years we were blessed with a son but after I lost her to darkness I couldn’t bear to stay. I returned to my guardianship position and I left my son in the care of my attendants Myra and Jim.”  
“You abandoned him!?” Ken  
“Yes I seek no forgiveness I do not deserve it, but do not doubt that I love him fiercely. For all the time between us he is my only child.”  
Tai made a sound that was midway between a huff and a sigh.  
“The time between us? Over 100 years since I last saw you. This is the first time you’ve seen any of them! Even your granddaughter.”  
Azulongmon looked over at Hikari who was looking at him with amazement and sadness.  
“I wish I had time for a proper meeting unfortunately you need information and my time is short. Be warned the threat is not over the evil that tried to seal me away is still out there. Arukenimon and Mummymon are merely pawns. All but one of the destiny stones is damaged and even with my power it will take time before they are fully repaired. With the digital world out of balance things will start happening in the human world and you need to be prepared. Please do not stop until the digital world is safe once and for all.”  
With that he had to leave. Tai slowly unclenched his fists before turning to Matt,  
“I’m sorry I never told you.”  
“I wish you had, but I understand why you didn’t.”  
“Wait does this mean that Tai is like a demi-god or something?” Davis  
“No Davis Azulongmon is a sovereign not a deity. It just means I was born with greater strength. The best comparison I can make is with a virtuoso. Others can still be masters of an instrument a virtuoso is just able to get there faster and easier. With enough training any of you could be as strong as I am.”  
The words triggered a memory in Davis. He’d been frustrated with his progress in learning how to use a sword. He’d admired King Taichi for most of his life. It had been a dream come true to be brought to the castle and he felt like if he wasn’t good enough he’d have to leave. Tai put those fears to rest by explaining that it had taken him years to master his fire blade and with enough training Daisuke could be just as good.  
Davis shook himself from his thoughts when he noticed the others moving. It was time to head home. Before they left Digitamamon gave them free food in thanks for defending his soup pond. When they got back to earth Davis thought he saw a control spire, but when he blinked it wasn’t there anymore.  
Soon it was almost time for Christmas and everyone was preparing for the holidays. Ken was throwing a Christmas party and nervously invited all the other digi-destined to it. He almost completely chickened out, but Davis spotted the invitations before he could put them back into his pocket. To his delight they all seemed excited about going.  
To celebrate all of their digimon were coming to spend to holidays in the human world. They were excited to see their partners because with guarding different sections of the digital world they had been too busy to meet up for more than a few hours. Matt was pleased that so many people were coming to his concert. While the older digi-destined were at Matt’s concert the younger were at Ken’s apartment.  
Tai was enjoying hearing Matt sing with the others although he was a bit annoyed at Jun’s persistence she seemed to think Matt was lying about being gay either that or she hoped she could be an exception. Tai didn’t really know and he didn’t care. Then in the middle of one of the songs dark-Tyrannomon and Bakemon burst into the concert hall. Agumon tried to digivolve, but something stopped him. Matt jumped off stage and ran toward their group and they all ran out eventually coming across a control spire.  
Tai didn’t want to interrupt their sleepover, but with all the digimon they needed help. It didn’t take long for the others to arrive. Tai noticed with a gentle smile that Ken was riding over with Davis before refocusing on the situation. They destroyed the control spire enabling everyone to digivolve. The amount of digital energy was messing with the electronics that weren’t adapted to it. Izzy pulled out his laptop and called for them to get all the bad digimon in one place so they could send them back to the digital world.  
With everyone’s help it didn’t take long to get them all. The younger generation returned to their sleepover while the rest went home. Before splitting Matt jokingly turned to Tai,  
“Should we be worried about Kari?”  
“No even though they don’t have their memories she’s got plenty of chaperons.”  
Matt laughed softly and Tai smiled at him. It seemed the holidays were doing everyone some good. Ken seemed genuinely happy and Tai saw interactions that made him hope that at least Davis and Ken’s memories were returning. He had high hopes for the New Year.  
He lied down in bed with Agumon climbing in after him asking for a story

“T’was a digimon Christmas  
And everyone was busy  
Especially the likes of  
Tentomon and Izzy  
Joe played with Gomamon  
Matt and Gabumon ate  
Palmon saw Mimi   
Isn’t that great?  
Cody and Uppamon shared a little sushi  
While Pururumon sat on Yolei’s tushy  
Tokomon went caroling  
Ken’s thankful for friends  
While in Davis’s dreams  
The fun never ends  
Good night now and Merry Christmas”


	10. 'Round the world and home again

When Tai woke up, he saw the news talking about control spires and digimon appearing all over the world. They all made plans to meet up at Izzy’s to come up with a plan. Davis seemed reluctant and when Tai asked what was wrong he said digimon were in Tamachi which was where Ken lived. Seeing Davis’s worry Tai let him go saying he’d take care of things here.  
When they all were at Izzy’s they began to seek out the human digi-destined around the world. There were a lot of them because of what had happened 4 years ago. It was hard work, but with all of them working on e-mails from different regions they got it done.  
In Tamachi Ken was worried. He was alone and with the control spire up Wormmon couldn’t digivolve. He though it was the end for him when Davis showed up on Rai-Dramon. They knocked the control spire over to Ken’s relief. Ken and Davis had their digimon digivolve, but it wasn’t enough so they DNA digivolved. Unfortunately that was when Mummymon got involved in the fight. With Mummymon and Triceramon fighting them it was too much. They didn’t even have time to form a counter attack. Ken was trying to form an attack himself, but he didn’t have the energy outside of the digital world yet. Then a light came to Pail-Dramon and he digivolved to Imperial-Dramon.   
The light had come from one of Azulongmon’s digi-cores. He had given it to Gennai who brought it to the digi-destined. With the energy the digimon could digivolve into ultimate even in the human world. All the older digi-destined felt the energy and realized they could digivolve in the human world as well. Imperial-Dramon took Ken and Davis with him and began destroying all the control spires in Japan.  
Gennai had been busy the past four years preventing humans from using the data gathered during the battle to travel to the digital world. With this he discovered 6 key areas the digi-destined of Japan would need to go to; New York, Hong Kong, Moscow, Mexico city, Sydney, and Paris.  
Since there were 6 locations they decided to split into pairs and use Imperial-dramon to drop them off at each location. Since none of the younger generation could digivolve yet it was decided that one of the older generation would accompany them for additional protection.  
The first people dropped off were Tai and TK in Paris. Then Izzy and Kari in Hong Kong., then Joe and Cody in Sydney, then Sora and Yolei in Moscow, finally Ken, Davis and Matt touched down in America. Imperial-dramon reverted back to Veemon and Wormmon. Davis would be heading up to Mimi in New York while Matt and Ken would head to Mexico City. They hooked up with Michael who had arranged transportation for them.  
In New York Mimi was excitedly waiting for Davis. Digimon all over the world were being directed to these six areas by the other digi-destined around the world. When Davis arrived in New York they soon got word that Cherrymon was attacking a Christmas tree. Before they headed out, Veemon digivolved to Ex-Veemon and Palmon digivolved all the way to Lillymon. Mimi debated digivolving herself, but decided to wait and see if they needed the help.  
Cherrymon had them all wrapped up in vines and Mimi was about to digivolve when they were freed by Centaurumon, With the help the digimon were all quickly herded to Central park where Davis opened a portal with his digivice sucking them all in.  
Then Mimi’s parents arrived and asked where all the monsters went Davis felt pressure and then decided to go with,  
“What monsters I don’t see any monsters.”  
‘When in doubt deny, deny, deny.’  
In Hong Kong Izzy and Kari arrived just in time to stop three boys from destroying Mojyamon. Izzy tried explaining things, but he didn’t speak Chinese and was only making them more confused until Jackie showed up and translated for them. He explained that the digimon weren’t evil they were just frightened and a long way from home.  
They were working on herding them to the park so they could send them home and asked if the boys would help. They agreed, but then Izzy got an emergency message from the border of India and Hong Kong. The army was there and the girl leading the digimon didn’t want to start a war. They wanted to use diplomacy, but worried they’d be attacked if they approached.  
After a while Kari came up with the idea for the Octomon to write a message out in ink. The army responded by standing in the shape of their message giving the go ahead for the others to come closer and explain. Before long they were heading back to the park. Back at the park the others had all gathered so they opened up a portal to send them home.  
In Sydney, Joe and Cody were dealing with the heat. Joe was a bit amazed by how easily the Australians brushed off what was happening, but all things considered it wasn’t too much of a shock. As they knocked down a control spire Hogan showed up to help them. The digi-destined were herding the digimon to the Great Barrier Reef.  
Before they could head out themselves they saw an Australian digi-destined being chased by three digimon. When the boy made it to shore he introduced himself as Derek and his digimon as Crabmon. They turned to the digimon in the water and by saying all the different kind of food they could be cooked in managed to scare them towards the meeting point.  
After a while they broke off pursuit to go destroy the last control spire in Australia. It was guarded by Scorpiomon so Ikkakumon had to digivolve. Then they began to fight. Zudomon dragged Scorpiomon and dragged him underwater to try and defeat him quickly so there would be minimal damage to the reef. Submarimon and Coelamon joined him. With their help he was able to lead Scorpiomon away and knock him out. With him out of the way they quickly destroyed the control spire and soon the rest of the digimon arrived and were sent home.  
In France Tai and TK were waiting in the cold for TK’s grandfather who would help them as they didn’t speak any French. It didn’t take long for him to arrive, but as they were traveling he suddenly stopped. Tai recognized the palace of Versailles and TK’s grandfather pointed out that something was wrong because the gates were open and there were no guards.  
They went inside to investigate and found digimon there feasting. They also saw a young girl and a Floramon tied up. They quickly prepared for rescue. Greymon and Angemon got the digimon outside to minimize the damage done to the palace. While they were busy they freed the girl who identified herself as Catherine. When she mentioned the additional digimon that had captured her they had their digimon digivolve to Magna-Angemon, Metal-Greymon and Kiwimon.   
With that they were able to herd the digimon to the meeting point and send them home. Tai was glad they finished up so quickly he didn’t like being spread out like they were.  
In Mexico City Matt and Ken were destroying the control spires as quickly as possible Matt was also in a hurry. Ken said that there were digimon hiding in the ruins and they wanted to get them out before they caused too much damage. While damage in the digital world could be easily repaired it took a lot longer on earth. Matt wondered where the digi-destined of the area were and Ken said they had a curfew. Matt was worried about all the guards. If they got caught he didn’t think the four of them would be enough.  
They were trying to find a way to sneak in when Jose arrived. He went to distract the guards with a display of martial arts while they snuck into the ruins. Wormmon got startled by something he saw in the dark so he went to get a light. Matt made a joke about him looking more like a glowworm than a silkworm. Wormmon just smiled and continued through the tunnels. Then they bumped into a girl called Rosa who had snuck out to help.  
She seemed enamored by Ken. This made him uncomfortable, but he didn’t know what to do. Wormmon tried to keep her away from Ken when he sensed his partner’s distress, but it didn’t seem to be working. Before long they found the digimon hiding in the ruins. They didn’t want to fight inside because of the damage they could cause so Matt attracted their attention and began running.   
When they got out of the ruins, Wormmon digivolved Stingmon to keep them from heading back in or attacking something then Gabumon and Gotsumon digivolved to Were-Garurumon and Monochromon. After they got done fighting Rosa had fallen asleep and they brought her home.  
In Moscow the language barrier was a problem they managed to introduce themselves, but not much else. They were trying to figure out how to translate the intent to herd of Flymon, but it wasn’t working very well. Eventually they found something that worked and got the Flymon all home. At that point Ilia showed up. He told them help was needed in Siberia so they set off right away.  
When an attack caused Sora to fall off Garudamon she had to act fast.  
“Sora digivolve to Tangermon!”  
Her crimson cloth armor quickly wove around her body and bright red wings burst from her back just in time. She was also grateful that with her inner fire coursing through her she wasn’t cold.  
“Magic flare!”  
The attack knocked out the digimon and just in time for the others to show up. Tai seemed a bit surprised to see her digivolved form, but he smiled at the fact that she could do it. All they had to do was pick up Kari and Izzy and they would be home in time for Christmas. All around the world the digi-destined were enjoying the holiday season now that the threat was over.  
Tai and Kari were having a discussion about what was going to happen. Tai wanted to make sure they were prepared. He knew the current digi-destined as far as they could remember had never killed a digimon with a heart. He wished they wouldn’t have to go through such a thing, but memories or not sometimes there wasn’t a choice.  
Tai hated himself a little for pushing this reality on Kari. If he had his way no darkness would ever touch her, but he wouldn’t always be there and he would rather she be prepared and alive than innocent and dead. They had to make some tough choices four years ago and if things got bad enough they might have to make the hard choice again.  
He wanted Kari’s opinion on if they would be able to make that choice if it came to that.  
“We’re just kids, dad.”  
“You may be young, but you’re not just kids. You’re digimon and digi-destined. Sometimes you have to make a choice for the safety of the world. It’s a terrible thing that I’m telling you and I wish I didn’t have to.”  
“I know dad.”  
“You’re going to be facing real digimon now and you have to be prepared or people will get hurt. I want you to remember that no matter what happens I will always love you and I’ll always be proud of you.”  
“Dad? Do you think any of them are going to remember?”  
“I don’t know. Ken seems to be getting some of his memories and Davis is showing signs, but there’s no guarantee.”  
Kari got up and hugged her dad. He held her close and if a few tears escaped their eyes well no one else would know.  
Ken meanwhile was having a nightmare. He was in the digital world with another boy fighting a digimon they had just beat it when something flew towards them. It looked like the thing Tai pulled out of him, only smaller. He pushed the other boy down and something hit his neck. It hurt so much.  
He told Wormmon about the dream and asked if it was real.  
“Yes, don’t you remember?”  
“Not really my memories are all jumbled. I’ve started remembering things from before I was sent here, but it’s only fragments. I spoke to Tai about it and he said to give it time. I just know something happened that day and I wish I knew what.”  
“Well there’s nothing you can do about it right now. Why don’t you get some more rest?”  
“I’ll try thank you Wormmon.”  
The next morning while watching the news they heard that a lot of children had gone missing. Not long after they got the news that Marine-Devimon appeared. He wasn’t the only one there was also Lady-Devimon and Skullsatamon. TK and Cody were the first to arrive with Joe coming not long after. They fought against Marine-Devimon. Kari and Yolie headed to fight Lady-Devimon. Garudamon and Were-Garurumon came to help when Lady-Devimon vanished.   
They looked around wondering where she went and spotted Ken and Davis who had gone to fight Skullsatamon with Tai and Izzy. Unfortunately Skullsatamon was moving around to fast to be hit by Pail-Dramon, Metal-Greymon or Mega-Kabuterimon. Pail-Dramon digivolved to Imperial-Dramon, but even that wasn’t enough. Skullsatamon used his dark energy to freeze Imperial-Dramon in place. The other arrived, but it didn’t take long for Skullsatamon to force most of them back to their resting forms. Then he picked up a buss full of children and Tai knew he had to act fast.  
He looked at Matt who nodded. Matt ran over to Imperial-Dramon and started pushing energy into him to help fight off Skullsatamon’s power while Tai prepared to distract Skullsatamon.  
“Taichi digivolve to Ryukomon.”  
As this was happening Matt’s power in addition to energy from the others helped Imperial-dramon get free and switch to fighter mode. Ryukomon swooped in and got the bus to safety as Imperial-Dramon shot Skullsatamon and he vanished. What Tai had warned Kari about had happened. Then another digimon appeared. He wanted Ken to go with him, but then he stopped.  
“The dark spore where is it?”  
Ryukomon stepped in front of the others.  
“He doesn’t have it anymore.”  
Daemon seemed angry.  
“You’ll pay for your interference and you won’t be able to keep the spore hidden forever Prince Taichi.”  
With that he slipped through a dark portal. Ryukomon reverted back to Tai and shivered. Daemon called him Prince Taichi.


	11. Fear and memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> implied lemon

They were prepared to separate and head home when they got attacked again. It was lady-Devimon. Gatomon wasn’t strong enough to digivolve again without eating, but she didn’t want anyone else to fight Lady-Devimon. It was a personal grudge so she asked Hawkmon for a boost. He and Yolei agreed so he digivolve so they could DNA digivolve to Sylphymon.   
They fought long and hard against Lady-Devimon trying to defeat her without killing her, but then she went after Kari and Yolei and Sylphymon had no choice that was acceptable. They weren’t going to let their partners get hurt or killed. This in turned forced Yolei into the reality of the war they were fighting and though it hurt she accepted it.  
Then in another part of the city Marine-Devimon was attacking and Tai knew what was happening. They were trying to find the dark spore. TK and Cody went to fight him with Shakkoumon. TK and Cody had an advantage in fighting as they weren’t holding back as much. TK had already accepted the realities of this war being as bad as the one four years ago. Cody didn’t know why he felt the same. As he saw the destruction Marine-Devimon was creating he knew he had to be stopped.   
Suddenly Cody remembered something. He was with Tai at least it looked like Tai only older like he was before digivolving into Ryukomon. Tai had been instructing him on how to summoning a weapon without digivolving. It was a slightly complex maneuver of pulling on some of the data of an evolution that was used when one didn’t have enough energy to digivolve. While he was training Tai got called away to battle and Iori followed hoping to help He watched Tai fight with his fire blade against a digimon he didn’t recognize eventually destroying it. Iori had been shocked and what King Taichi said to him that day he swore he would always remember,  
“Sometimes you have to take extreme measure to protect the ones you love. While I do not like destroying other digimon the reality of the situation is I would rather destroy them than let them destroy someone else. If I let them go and they went on to kill someone I loved I would feel like that death was my fault. Perhaps I am a little on edge though with Matt’s pregnancy I just don’t want anything to happen to risk the baby.”  
Cody snapped out of the memory, and refocused on the fight. He hoped Shakkoumon would be able to win without destroying Marine-Devimon, but at the same time accepted that it might not be possible. When the battle neared a hospital they went inside to try and help the patients, but when Marine-Devimon broke into the hospital he was destroyed. Cody was saddened, but knew it was better not to risk so many lives.  
Meanwhile Tai was worried about the location of the dark spore. If they were this desperate to get it Tai hoped Izzy managed to destroy it before they found it. The spore was in an abandoned apartment at Highton View Terrace. The place was ideal as the connection to the digital world was deep there due to all the years Tai spent training. The energy of the portal there normally would mask the spore, but with all the fighting and dark energy around Tai wasn’t sure so he sent Izzy to destroy it. The potential knowledge gained from studying it wasn’t worth the possible risks. With Kabuterimon helping it shouldn’t take him too long to get there, but Tai didn’t want him without back-up so he and Matt were heading over on Garurumon with Davis and Ken on Rai-Dramon.  
By the time they got there they saw a man with many small children. It was the kids that were missing.  
“Tai he has the spore I tried to stop him, but the children-“  
“Don’t worry about it Izzy. Keeping them safe is a priority.”  
Ken was staring at the man. With his memories slowly returning he recognized the man. He had been at his brother’s funeral. When the man spotted Ken he said,  
“I was most disappointed when I learned the spore had been removed there’s not as much of it as I’d hope, but no matter. It seems you recognize me.”  
“You were at my brother’s funeral.”  
“That’s not all I wonder if you’ll remember this.”  
Then he recited something and Ken froze.  
“You sent that e-mail.”  
“I am Oikawa Yukio.”  
Tai upon seeing how pale Ken looked moved subtly in a position that would make it easier to protect him out of the corner of his eye he noticed Davis doing the same thing. As Tai spread his senses around he saw they were too late the spore had already been implanted in the children. Before they could fight Daemon showed up demanding that Oikawa give him what he wanted. While they were talking Davis sent a message to the others asking them to come. When Daemon began attacking their digimon digivolved but it wasn’t enough. When Arukenimon and Mummymon began fighting Davis and Ken took the opportunity to DNA digivolve. Things grew tense when he brushed off Pail-Dramon like he was nothing. Soon the others showed up with Shakkoumon and Sylphymon. Daemon shot them with devil’s fire and Pail-Dramon digivolved to Imperial-Dramon to keep them from getting hit.  
They combined their three attacks, and were shocked when Daemon managed to stop them all. When he threatened to shoot at a nearby apartment complex Imperial-Dramon switched to fighter mode to block the attack.  
“He’s too strong for us.” Cody  
“There’s a laptop in Jim’s can’t we open a portal to send him to the digital world.”  
Then Daemon blew that plan out of the water by forcing open a portal himself. Yolei was despairing, but Davis and Tai were determined.  
“We’re not beaten yet.” Davis  
“There has to be somewhere strong enough to contain him.” TK  
“Like the dark ocean.” Kari  
“That great, but we don’t have a way of making a gate to there.” Yolei  
“You may not, but I do.” Tai   
Matt shot Tai a concerned look.  
“It’s ok since there’s already a portal open it won’t take as much energy as it normally would. I just need to redirect it.”  
Tai focused on the portal and directed it to the one place he feared more than anything. His arm trembled and the portal began to change. Soon Kari and TK had their hands on his arm subconsciously giving him a small boost in energy. Then Cody and Yolei helped and Davis and Ken weren’t far behind and finally he felt Matt’s arms around his waist feeding him even more energy than the others.  
“I know you’re scared, but you’re not Prince Taichi anymore. You can fight back now. You’re strong enough to push back the fear.”  
Tai pulled on the energy the others gave him and the portal fully changed. Combining their attacks they were able to send Daemon through the portal and Tai leaned against Matt exhausted. Kari looked at her dad in admiration and a bit of sadness. All this time she worried about the dark ocean she never realized how he felt about it. He’d always been so strong for her. That moment she vowed that if her dad could face some of his worst memories she could face hers and she would never fear the darkness again.  
When they pulled themselves together enough to look around the police were arriving and Oikawa was running off. They chased him, but he drove off before they could stop him. When they got back they saw the police were gathering up the kids to take them home.  
“Tai can you remove the spore like you did for me?”  
“I don’t know. It wavers so much in them. With you, your energy was keeping it contained and mostly separate from you. It’s why it never bloomed, but with them. I’m not sure if I can isolate the spore and remove it without doing damage.”  
“In any case we should get you all home.” Jim  
Soon everyone was dropped off and when Ken saw how worried his parents were he decided to tell them the truth about the digital world. He wasn’t going to tell them who he really was just yet one big secret at a time. When he finished explaining he introduced them to Wormmon. They were surprisingly accepting and he was grateful for that.  
With the information Oikawa told them Ken was able to learn more from his parents. Then they got information on the kids he had kidnapped. If they couldn’t remove the spores immediately they could at least keep an eye on the kids that were infected. They wouldn’t be able to get close but Yolei figured that Oikawa infected them for a purpose and would come for them eventually.  
Ken was upset about it, but tried not to let on. He remembered how the dark spore affected him. Almost every good memory he had was locked away leaving him to stew in darkness. If what Tai said was any indication these kids would have it worse. There were already signs that the spore had taken root.  
Ken shook himself from his dark thoughts. He had to be strong for those children. He thought back on his memories from before about his life as a digimon. There were still a few gaps, but on the whole they had returned. He only wished he could say the same for Davis. He missed his husband and sometimes Davis would look at him and he hoped… but so far there was nothing. Davis mentioned only remembering bits of his training so far which was useful as now they could form attacks even in human form, but that wasn’t much of a comfort.  
He wondered how Tai coped being so close to Matt and being unable to hold him like he wanted to. Ken could tell Davis was fond of him, but how far did that fondness go? Would he need to seduce him all over again? This time wouldn’t be as easy; Davis had been unattached before and mostly focused on his training. It took years before he admitted to Ken that he had been afraid of getting sent away if he wasn’t good enough.  
With these thoughts he drifted into an uneasy sleep. It started like normal he was training with Daisuke, Iori and Miyako. He was the furthest along in his training because he had been there the longest and only had one crest to focus on. He knew he was close to being able to digivolve, but had been unable to so far. He watched his husband move with a smile on his face.  
When Daisuke summoned a weapon gauntlets would appear on his arms and he could channel fire and lightning attacks through them. Miyako could summon an ax which she could throw and use the wind to summon it back. Iori could summon a sword which he swung around like it weighed nothing, but if anyone else held it, it weighed a ton. Ken like Daisuke could summon gauntlets, but while Daisuke blasted targets with his Ken formed a whip out of water which struck the targets with deadly precision not that they had actually gone into battle yet. Tai said they had to be able to digivolve first as fighting in their human form was dangerous. If you were in a digivolved state and got badly hurt most of the damage could be mitigated by reverting to your resting form. Being hurt in your resting form took a lot longer to recover from.  
Then while they were training an alarm went out. The castle was under attack. The four ran out as quickly as they could and saw their king, their mentors and friends fighting against a vast army of digimon. They quickly noticed the digimon were being controlled and worked to free as many as they could. Ken saw Jyou take a hit for Mimi and quickly reverting back to human form, but he was younger than his resting state normally looked.  
Ken watched as Taichi created a portal under Jyou sending him somewhere safe. Soon he was doing the same for Mimi and Sora. Then Ken felt himself growing tired and he knew from their bond that Daisuke was exhausted as well. The numbers were thinning out, but he was so tired and he couldn’t even stay in his resting state. He looked over and saw Daisuke appeared to be barely out of infancy much like princess Hikari and he suspected he was the same. Before they could get hit he felt light and warmth surrounding him that he recognized and King Taichi’s energy. Soon he found himself in a completely different area. He’d never been here before, but from the feel of it this was the human world.  
He toddled around barely able to walk on two legs as he looked for Daisuke. He knew if he found him that things would be ok. It wouldn’t be great just the two of them, but it would be alright. He started calling out.  
“Dai! Dai!”  
Soon his shouting attracted the attention of a young boy not much older than he looked.  
“Who’re you looking for?”  
He looked down sadly. He couldn’t say husband he looked too young for that.  
“My friend,”  
“What’s your name?”  
“Ken.”  
“I’m Sam let me get my mom and we’ll help you look.”  
Sam was pulling Ken along and brought him to a young woman who looked shocked at the tiny toddler her son was pulling along. Ken heard himself being introduced, but he couldn’t fight any longer and he blacked out.   
With a jolt Ken woke up in his bed in the human world. Was that a real memory? He remembered Tai had mentioned a battle, but he didn’t go into detail. Ken looked at the clock and noted that it was around four in the morning. His questions could wait he wanted to get some more sleep.  
When he woke up he told his mom he was spending the day with his friends and went straight to Tai to talk to him about the dream. After explaining everything that happened Tai confirmed it was a genuine memory. He seemed happy that Ken’s memory was almost completely restored and also sad because he knew how it felt when the one you loved the most didn’t remember you. He told Ken that if he ever needed someone to talk to his door was open.   
For the next few days they continued monitoring the children. Tai was frustrated about his inability to remove the dark spore from these kids, but he couldn’t. With Ken he had been open to what Tai did and his own energy kept the spore from gaining to great of a hold on him. These kids wanted the dark spore inside of them. Tai also had Agumon and the others monitoring the portal in the digital world that lead to Highton View Terrace. It was one of the most large and stable portals in between the digital world and earth in existence.

One morning Armadillomon was discovered by Cody’s grandfather and he discovered his dad had been to the digital world. He was almost forbidden from leaving the house by his mother, but his grandfather said he’d stay with Cody. After practicing Kendo with his grandfather he wanted to talk to Tai, but he had to switch watch with Yolei. He decided the talk could wait. As he stood outside he could hear the girl shouting at her mother and it worried him. Tai said negative emotions made the spore grow faster. It was part of what they learned from Izzy’s study of the thing.  
As he was waiting for Yolei to get back with food he was confronted by Oikawa. He accused Oikawa of brainwashing the kids, but he didn’t seem to hear him. All of Oikawa’s attention was on his bag.  
“That bag it says Hida, Hiroki!”  
“That was my dad’s name what’s it to you!”  
Before the confrontation could escalate Yolei, Arukenimon and Mummymon showed up. Cody expected to fight, but Oikawa ordered the pair to leave and left as well. With the additional knowledge he went to talk to Tai. He told him about Oikawa and his dad.  
“What was your father’s name?”  
“His name was Hiroki.”  
Cody was shocked when Tai seemed to recognize the name.  
“You know him?”  
“Yes he was one of the first humans to contact the digital world to my knowledge. He was quite a guy. He loved video games and was always in awe at the beauty of the ever shifting digital world. I told him about our world wanting to learn more about the human world. He wished he could come to the digital world, but it had been impossible at that time. He’s the reason I knew as much as I did about humans when I first arrived like the fact that humans couldn’t revert to a younger age no matter how tired they were. I’m sorry I never made the connection between the names or I would have told you.”  
“I understand. Tai I think I’m starting to remember some things.”  
“Ok like what?”  
“Yolei and I we were together weren’t we?”  
“Yes.”  
“I remember our wedding. She was so beautiful and her eyes lit up like nothing I’d ever seen before. Also I remember working with Jyou in the hospital, but it always made me feel squeamish.”  
“Yeah you could handle blood during sparring, but surgery always got to you.”  
Cody turned a bit green at the thought before continuing.  
“Also I remember you training me to use a sword and I was an advisor I think.”  
“That’s also true. You were a quick learner and always intelligent though sitting still never quite suited you. You could be still when it was needed, but also liked to spend part of your day active.”  
“Are any of the others remembering?”  
“Ken’s almost completely regained his memory which I imagine is probably because of the figurative reboot he had to go through after the dark spore was removed from him. Davis on occasion shows signs and he has remembered some of his training, but I’m not sure about Yolei. If she has remembered anything she hasn’t told me about it.”  
“I see thank you Tai.”  
“No problem Cody.”  
“Tai, if it’s not too much to ask, why don’t you call us by our real names?”  
“Well if you like I can go back to calling you Iori, but I figured it would be awkward if I called you by a name you don’t remember having.”  
“That makes sense. I’ll wait until I remember more before you call me that again.”  
“No problem.”  
Later Ken was following Noriko around. She was the girl who seemed to be affected the worst by the dark spore. She caught him following her and confronted hm. He tried to explain the mistake she was making, but she brushed him off and began to leave. He watched her for a moment as Davis and Cody arrived. Then she began screaming. Ken quickly scanned her like Tai had taught him to do just in case and was shocked. The dark spore seemed to be warping and expanding.  
As they watched it blossomed into a dark flower and that was when Oikawa showed up. Wormmon and Veemon digivolved to Pail-Dramon, but they couldn’t do much without risking hurting Noriko. As they watched Oikawa began harvesting the power in the dark Flower. When he finished the flower vanished and he pushed Noriko to Cody saying she held no use to him now.   
A dark force surrounded him, but before they could do anything Black War-Greymon showed up. War-Greymon sensed him from where he was with Tai and they agreed to head out as quickly as possible. When they arrived Black War-Greymon was talking to Oikawa.  
“Do you really think power is going to bring you happiness? If so you’re living in a dream. Power isn’t going to help you escape the loneliness you feel because you don’t have any friends. Take it from me the more powerful you get the lonelier you become.”  
Tai wanted to interject, but it didn’t help that he agreed. Apart from Matt he had no one to turn to for years. Then came Koushiro, Mimi, Jyou and Sora and years later they were joined by Ken, Miyako, Iori and Daisuke. He was lucky.  
Tai was pulled from his thoughts by the arrival of Cody’s grandfather who remembered Oikawa quite well as Hiroki’s friend. He brought up memories including how torn up Oikawa had been over the death of his only friend. It made sense to Tai the loss would have driven him to try and fill the gap in any way he could. In this case he seemed to be trying to reach the digital world, but the loss had warped his mind, but somehow Tai didn’t think that was it. There was another darkness in Oikawa almost completely eclipsed by the power from the dark flower.  
Cody’s grandfather tried and reaching him by saying it would be nice to have someone he could share the loss of Hiroki with. It was working, but that darkness Tai sensed provoked the power in the Dark flower causing Oikawa great pain. Soon his eyes turned red and he was possessed. He attacked Cody’s grandfather, but Black War-Greymon blocked the attack getting injured in the process.  
It seemed he recognized the being possessing Oikawa. Tai and Black War-Greymon both realized something. The injury was too great and soon his body would break apart. Even with the power he got from Azulongmon he was still made up of control spires, but there was one last thing he could do for the friends who had helped him so much. Using the last of his power he was able to completely seal the gate a Highton View Terrace.   
“He always wanted to do something meaningful with his life.” TK  
“I’d say this definitely qualifies.” Cody  
In the digital world the others saw the image of Black War-Greymon appear over the gate they were guarding and realized what had happened. It upset Tai that he couldn’t prevent it and he felt War-Greymon’s grief as well as his own.  
He wished there was something he could to, but the only thing he was able to do was send Agumon back to the digital world to be with his friends. Later he went to Matt’s apartment. His father was working late again and as soon as Tai was inside he released the lock on his appearance returning to his adult age. Matt frowned, but did the same and soon Tai was pushing him against the wall kissing him fiercely.   
“Tai?”  
“I want to feel you, all of you, tonight.”  
“Are you ok?”  
“Yes, but after what happened tonight I don’t want to spend another moment alone.”  
“You’re never alone Tai.”  
“I know, but tonight I want to be with you and only you.”  
“Ok.”  
With that Matt tugged Tai gently along to his bedroom locking the door behind them just in case.


	12. Ending and Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so here is the final chapter I meant to put it up earlier but I've been busy preparing for my finals

It was now the 31st of December and the kids who had been infected with the dark spore began gathering at Highton View Terrace. It was likely they were trying to reach the digital world and didn’t know that the gate there had been sealed.  
Sora, Biyomon, Tai and Agumon were the only ones who weren’t there yet as they were watching Noriko to make sure she’s no longer under the influence of the dark flower. Matt wasn’t worried he knew Tai would join them as soon as he could.  
Kari was worried, but not about her dad, she was worried about the digital world. She had enjoyed all the places her dad and papa had taken her over the past four years. She had even gone to the place where their kingdom used to be. Her dad had looked sad as he looked around the empty village. He decided to fix it up whenever he had time and hope that eventually digimon would want to live there again.  
It broke Kari’s heart wondering if they would be able to keep the digital world safe and rescue all of the children. When TK heard what was bothering her he did his best to cheer her up. Then Izzy’s mother showed up with snacks for them. They were grateful for the food as they didn’t know how long they would be waiting. Then she left to go talk to the parents of the children.  
They hoped their parents would be able to reach them in a way they could not. Family bonds were some of the strongest bonds in existence. After they finished eating Oikawa showed up. They ran to confront him, but were stopped by Arukenimon and Mummymon. As they were preparing to leave Ken once more asked Oikawa why he chose to implant the dark spore in Ken and finally confirmed Tai’s suspicion. He was chosen because he was digi-destined and the most vulnerable one due to his recent loss and distance from the other digi-destined.  
The control spires gathered energy from the dark ocean and changed the borders of the digital world which would weaken its defenses. He did this so he would be able to enter the digital world himself instead of just being able to send Arukenimon and Mummymon. When that didn’t work he came up with the dark spores. It had to be children as children seemed to have a natural ability to enter the digital world. As he explained this Oikawa began crying much to the shock of those watching.  
He was happy his lifelong dream was coming true and he wished he could have brought Hiroki with him. While he watched Matt moved over and saw Oikawa was opening the gate using the same cards they used to get to the human world when Myotismon was attacking. Then his eyes widened as the last card slid into place. It was the wrong card! Matt tugged on his bond to Tai asking him to come as quickly as possible.  
When Tai felt that urgency and asked Sora to keep watching while he went to investigate. As he arrived he saw the gate and knew it didn’t lead to the digital world. Matt informed him of the card used and everyone ran out. They wanted to be cautious, but the others were already running and no way was Tai going to let his daughter go to who knows what kind of world without him. Tai noted that Izzy and Joe stayed behind and was grateful. They should be able to get the word out. As they arrived they saw Oikawa drop to his knees in despair at not being able to reach the digital world.  
Then a mouth appeared and as Tai felt the energy he realized it was the being that possessed Oikawa. It was able to do so because he heart was so overcome by grief he was willing to do anything to get to the digital world. Gatomon recognized the voice. It was one that still plagued her nightmares. It was Myotismon. After they defeated him a fragment remained and had been growing and repairing itself inside of Oikawa all these years.  
He harvested the dark flowers from all of the kids and Oikawa causing them to collapse and he was reformed as Malo-Myotismon. Then he destroyed Arukenimon and Mummymon. All of the younger digi-destined apart from Davis were being overcome with despair. Tai stood in front of his daughter.  
“Dad no I don’t want you to be destroyed.”  
Tai turned to Kari and held her face gently in his hands.  
“My Hikari, you have been the light of life from the moment I learned of your existence. I have felt fear many times in my life. Having the crest of courage doesn’t mean I’ve never been afraid it means I’ve never let fear stop me from doing what is right. You can never win a battle if you fight thinking you’ll lose.”  
Davis was ready to fight and Ex-Veemon stood with him. Then Ken walked forward even though he was trembling and grabbed Davis’s arm.  
“Wait, Malo-Myotismon is too powerful for Ex-Veemon alone we need to DNA digivolve right?”  
“You’re hand, it’s shaking.”  
“I can’t help it I’m afraid.”  
“Hey we’ll never be able to DNA digivolve if you’re afraid of it Ken. Now we’ve got a bad guy to beat. Don’t say another word Ken. I know you’re afraid, but you can’t give into it. You can’t let fear control you.”  
With that Ken firmed his resolve and kissed Davis.  
“If I’m not going to let fear control me I’d just like to say I’ve wanted to do that a while.”  
Davis paused in shock for a while, but then focused on the fight he was about to get into. Seeing that encouraged the others and TK said,  
“We can’t let Malo-Myotismon see our fears or he’ll use them against us.”  
“We will win.”  
The fire of Davis’s determination gave Ex-Veemon a boost and he was able to hit Malo-Myotismon. Before they could land another blow Malo-Myotismon sent out a mental illusion attack. In TK’s mind he saw his family, his mom dad and brother were all together. In Yolei’s mind she saw herself in the digital world reading a large book with someone she couldn’t quite make out next to her. In Cody’s mind he saw himself showing his dad around the digital world introducing him to the digimon and eventually his wife Miyako. In Kari’s mind she saw herself in the kingdom relaxing with all her parents and friends. Ken saw himself with Daisuke they were lounging in bed together. They both had training, but wanted to spend just a few more minutes relaxing with each other.  
Then Ken heard Wormmon, and he shook himself. This was just an illusion. Then he saw Davis appear with TK and Patamon. Yolie appeared with Hawkmon and Ex-Veemon, Kari appeared with Gatomon and Rai-Dramon and Cody appeared with Armadillomon and Flame-Dramon. Together they all burst from the illusion to see War-Greymon and Metal-Garurumon fighting Malo-Myotismon. All three of Veemon’s digivolved forms quickly jumped into the fray. Then Ken asked Davis how there were three of them and he responded that he wished Ex-Veemon was strong enough to fight Malo-Myotismon and then there were 3 of him. Somehow the world they were in took powerful thoughts and wishes and made them a reality.  
Then TK focused on his wish to keep darkness from spreading and Patamon was now Pegasusmon, Angemon and Magna-Angemon. The others quickly began following suit. Hawkmon became Halsemon, Aquilamon and Shurimon. Armadillomon became Submarimon, Ankylomon and Digmon. Gatomon became Nefertimon and Angewomon. Wormmon became Stingmon. Then Ankylomon and Angemon became Shakkoumon. Aquilamon and Gatomon became Sylphymon and Stingmon and Ex-Veemon became Pail-Dramon then Imperial-Dramon fighter mode.   
Malo-Myotismon wondered why his illusion didn’t work on Davis, Matt and Tai. For Matt and Tai it was because they were trained to defend against such attacks and Davis it seems genuinely had nothing in his life he was truly dissatisfied with. Then they blasted him through a wall which led to the digital world. As they followed the extra digimon vanished leaving Imperial-Dramon, Sylphymon, Shakkoumon, War-Greymon and Metal-Garurumon.   
They saw Malo-Myotismon absorbing darkness to become bigger. Kari shouted at the pain she was feeling due to her sensitivity to darkness. Tai and Matt ran to her encircling her in their arms and using their energy to shield her as best as they could.   
He was using the darkness to coat both worlds. On earth Sora and the others including Mimi had gathered together to prepare to fight. Imperial-Dramon, War-Greymon, Metal-Garurumon, Sylphymon and Shakkoumon were all doing their best to fight him, but it seemed like it still wasn’t enough. The kids Oikawa brought blamed themselves they didn’t understand why the digi-destined kept fighting what looked to them like a losing battle. They were all despairing and Davis shouted at them that they weren’t beaten yet, but they would be if they just gave up.  
In the human world the digi-destined and all the parents were gathered at the camp where they first went to the digital world. It wasn’t as solid as the gate a Highton view terrace was, but it was as close as they could get. Noriko was ill and they needed to get her to Oikawa so he could help.  
In the digital world they were continuing to attack, but it seemed nothing could penetrate the darkness and the kids wondered why they kept trying. They thought they might be able to help if they were digi-destined, but they weren’t.  
On earth the digi-destined were all using their digivices and the light from them was cutting through the darkness created by Malo-Myotismon. They all knew they had to help in this fight in any way they could. Likewise in the digital world many digimon appeared to help fight they had been led their by the lights of their digi-destined partners.  
The lights of the digimon and their partners were weakening Malo-Myotismon. They held up their digivices and a wave of water swept over them just like 4 years ago bringing them to the digital world. Digi-destined from all over the world were now prepared to fight. Their bonds with their digimon opened up the gates. The kids with the dark spore were still down. They had no partners and now felt tainted by the dark spores they carried. Their dark thoughts were giving power to Malo-Myotismon.  
Davis turned towards the children telling them that they didn’t need a digimon to be important and TK joined him saying that everyone has problems they need to face. They couldn’t just lie down and give into their troubles.  
“Look at Ken he didn’t give up when he found out Oikawa was using him. Everyone has got problems, but everyone has good things going for them too.”  
Davis asked them about their hopes and dreams and they said they were taken away. When Davis shouted that no one could take away their dreams but them, and they asked what his dream was.  
“I want to have kids with my partner and become a culinary genius.”  
Ken brightened at Davis’s words he was remembering.  
Noriko shared her dream of becoming a kindergarten teacher.  
“Me too!” Kari said and this spurred on the kids. One wanted to play baseball another wanted to open a bakery another wanted to be a comic book artist. As they all spoke about their dreams Malo-Myotismon began to break apart. The digi-destined rallied together.  
“It’s never too late to make your dreams come true!”  
With that Oikawa’s chosen children let go of their pain and fear and to their surprise baby digimon appeared in front of them and digivices appeared in their hands. With the light of all the digi-vices they contained Malo-Myotismon and an attack from Imperial-Dramon destroyed him. The fight was over.  
Gennai approached Gatomon and gave her back her tail-ring. He had been using it to hold back the darkness as much as he could, but now it wasn’t necessary. Then Kari turned to her dad.  
“What was that world we were in?”  
“It’s called the dream world. It has the power to grant wishes. A little like the digital world, but more concentrated. The digital world is a mix of computer data and desire. The dark Ocean is also like that, but it brings to life dark desires.”  
“Should we remove the dark spores from the children?” Yolei  
“I don’t think it’s necessary. As long as they continue to believe in their hopes and dreams the dark spores are helpless against them.” Tai  
Then Yolei noticed Cody was helping Oikawa over to the entrance to the digital world. Oikawa was looking a little better now that the possession ended. His skin wasn’t as pale, but still Tai could see what was happening just as easily as he could when it was black War-Greymon. Oikawa wished he had been more like Cody rather than give into his despair. Then a digimon formed in front of him calling him Yukio. It was a Datirimon who was Yukio’s partner.  
“I’ve been waiting a long time for you. Don’t you remember me?”  
“Of course I remember you it’s just been so long since I’ve seen you, since my happier days with Hiroki.”  
“Well better late than never come on!”  
“The digital world looks rough.”  
“Yes a lot of energy was used to defeat Malo-Myotismon, but don’t worry time will rebuild.” Tai  
“The power of this world is to make dreams come true. My body is too weak to go on, but I won’t need it.”  
With that he reformed into many butterflies. His partner was sad about him going, but he said not to worry he would always be part of the digital world. Using his energy he was able to repair the parts of the digital world that had almost been destroyed by Malo-Myotismon.

Epilogue

It was now 25 years later and everyone’s memory had completely come back. They all still got together as often as possible for trips to the digital world. It was much easier now that the human world was aware of it. Every human had their own digimon. They decided to live for most of a human lifetime on earth before returning to the digital world full time. They even all got married in the human world and got jobs.   
TK became a novelist and enjoyed writing about all of their adventures an edited version of course. Tai had become a diplomat which he found amusing. He was essentially an ambassador between earth and the digital world. He made a law stating that digimon could not be used in human wars as the damage on earth could not be repaired as easily as in the digital world. Matt decided to continue with his band as long as possible before retiring.  
Sora was a fashion designer and loved using inspiration from the digital world in her designs. Joe was now a doctor in both the digital world and the human world. Mimi like Tai was in diplomatic relations smoothing things over whenever Tai got frustrated with certain politicians. Izzy was helping researchers understand more about the digital world and coming up with new software in his spare time.  
Kari had become a teacher when they returned to the digital world she intended to work in primary village teaching the baby digimon. Miyako worked as a librarian she said it was nice being surrounded by books. Ken had become a detective with Stingmon and they both went the extra mile to put criminals behind bars. They were notorious for never giving up on a case.  
Iori had become an attorney. His time as an advisor served him well in all the memory tricks he learned. Daisuke opened up a restaurant and it became quite popular with branches opening up worldwide.   
Sora and Joe decided to have a child and they had a girl who they named Myra in honor of TK’s mother. Mimi and Izzy had a son named Haru. Iori and Miyako had twins named Mari and Riku. TK and Kari were married, but decided to wait on children. Ken and Daisuke also decided to wait to have children until they were permanently in the digital world as they hadn’t been revealed as digimon yet.  
A year after the defeat of Malo-Myotismon two new kinds of eggs appeared in primary village. They all recognized one and Iori recognized the other. When the eggs hatched they looked like human babies, but while they were once human they were now digimon and two digimon in particular wanted to see them. Datirimon nuzzled up to the newborn Yukio and Mokumon nuzzled the newborn Hiroki. Iori had tears in his eyes seeing his human father reborn. They didn’t know for sure, but they hypothesized that due to their connection to the digital world and Yukio’s wish when he died they were able to become digimon.  
After completing their training everyone was now able to digivolve. As known, Tai was Ryukomon, Matt was Lycamon, Joe was Sawbomon, Sora was Tangermon, Mimi was Nakomon, and Izzy was StagBeemon. Now Ken was Stridermon an insect digimon which had high speeds and could walk on water. Daisuke was Jin-Dramon a dragon like digimon capable of using fire and lightning. TK was Dian-Angemon a guardian from of Angemon that used wind and holy attacks. Kari was Spirimon a digimon that used water and holy attacks. Miyako was Weavermon a birdlike digimon that used wind attacks. Iori was Meermon a slim mammal like digimon known for swiftly digging tunnels and its mighty earth attacks.  
The darkness wasn’t completely gone that was impossible, but as long as they were there it would be kept at bay.


End file.
